Next Class: March 16th
Om Sahanavavatu
Shlokas
Saraswati Namastubyam
Gurur Brahma Gurur Vishnu
Ekadantam Mahakayam
Mookam Karoti Vaachalam
Manojavam maruta tulya
Gita Chanting
Chapter 14 verse 1, 2 and 3, 4
Activities
Concentration Time : Shell game
Letter of the day :U for Unity
Story : The Giant turnip
Game : Tear the bundle
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Section A : Ruchi Vyas and Reshma Arun
We had a great class with lots of energy and enthusiasm.Daylight savings time began today (Spring forward) and we were anticipating less attendance because of that. But to our surprise almost everybody came and we had 18 children in our class! It was very exciting to see that even though we all had to come to balavihar earlier than usual, we made it.
We started with three Om's and our daily shlokas/chants followed by quiet time and Bhagwat Geeta. It all went very well and children started to focus and got ready to hear about the topic of the day. We introduced letter 'U' for 'unity'. We all had a discussion about what is unity and what happens when we have unity. We talked about teamwork and joining our hands to help each other. As an example, we talked about how any soccer team can perform better if the team is united and each member of the team knows when to help the other. We all agreed that if team spirit is not there than the chances to perform the best would be slim even though the individual players were good. Unity is strength. When we are united, we have a far better chance of succeeding in life. We also discussed the unity in our body. All body parts are different. They look different, they function differently. We all stretched our body and starting from our toes, we moved upward to see what was the function of each part of the body. We concluded that all the body parts function differently, yet they all work together. The eyes see the car coming.They do not hold on to the information.Quickly they inform the brain.The brain tells the legs to run! This is called unity in diversity.
We also did an exploration activity to teach children that unity creates strength. Each child was given a strip of scrap paper. They were asked to tear it. Everybody could do it easily. Then we gathered strips of paper in a bundle and asked each child to attempt to tear the whole bundle. No one could tear it. we all could see that unity brings strength.
We also enacted the story of the enormous turnip together. Since some of the students did not know what the turnip was, we converted the turnip into a carrot and proceeded with the story. First just one student tried to pull the carrot but did not succeed then we had more students joined in but the carrot did not come out. Finally the whole class put an effort and guess what the carrot came out and we pretended to eat it.
We also sang our Bhajan" Khate bhi Ram bolo". We added our lines in the bhajan saying; United bhi Ram bolo, Together bhi Ram bolo, Teamwork bhi Ram bolo Ram, Ram, Ram. It was a lot fun. We did our creative likhita japa at the end and it was time to go home.
Thank you so much and we will look forward to have a fun class next week. Till then have a great week!!
Section B : Jacqueline Gaines and Meena Rajan
We started the class with 3 aum's and continued with our opening prayer. The class said the shloka together in unison and it was beautiful to chant with the children. Before we continued we told each other that we would continue the chanting in a steady pace in a loud voice but paying attention to the words and never rushing.
As we continued to pace ourselves nicely we sang our shlokas and followed by gita in unison. Today as promised we let the kids lead and we found they know the first three verses very well. Yes we did have to repeat fourth verse couple of times so that they got it together. But it was definite that the children are doing regular practice. So thankyou parents and keep up the good work and remember to register them for the gita chanting competition.
This was followed by our quiet time and shell game. Kids are definitely focusing better and are quite for longer time. We have progressed our counting to shell in higher 20's and still they are doing great. We started our alphabet safari after that kids were great saying together all the letters upto the letter U. They had great suggestions for letter U. U for unusual, universe and useful were very good. Our balavihar word was unity and the story we heard was "The giant turnip"
Once upon a time there was a farmer. One winter’s end, just before the beginning of
spring, he took a seed and planted it in the ground. Every day he watered it. The roots
went down and the shoots came up. The sweed was soon the size of a nut, a tomato, a
potato, then a man’s head and still it kept growing.
One day, the farmer’s wife said “I think it’s time to pull this turnip up. It’s full grown... and
ready to be cooked. I’d love to make a turnip stew with it.” So the farmer went out and
took hold of the turnip top and pulled and pulled. But the turnip wouldn’t budge. He tried
again... and as he did, he sang a little song:
Heave-ho, heave-ho! Pull the turnip free.
Heave-ho, heave-ho! We’ll have it for our tea.
He sang and he pulled. He pulled and he sang. But the turnip would not budge.
He called out his wife and then his wife called out his son and the son called out his dog but still they could not pull up the turnip. Then a little field mouse who was running along in the field joined the dog and all pulled the turnip and giant turnip popped out.
This story was enjoyed by all. This was followed by our game. We first passed a strip of paper to each kid which they easily could tear into pieces. Then we passed a bundle which all of them with all their might could not tear.
So, in our own special way we both learnt about unity and that unity gave strength. Finally it was time to do likita japa and all the kids happily did write the lord's name rama on his lotus feet. Every child tried their own creative way to do it and finally they were excited to take it home.
Today was the first day after time change so children as expected were not in full attendance. But we are sure next week we will have full attendance as the kids take some time to get adjusted. We as usual would be waiting for you and yes as usual we will have lots of fun...
