Next Class: May 18th

Our Kindergarten class is scheduled to have our Class Photo taken at 11:10 a.m. for the Ashram's Inauguration Souvenir Book. Please note the following:

1. Only students with a signed consent form will be photographed. Please don't forget to bring this form with you to class on May 18. (Click here to download the Consent Form.)

2. You may also include the donation money with your Consent Form. For our class size, the suggested donation is $15.00 per child. (Check is preferred, but cash is also acceptable.)

3. Please arrive to class on time. We will be juggling a very tight schedule.

4. Children can come dressed in colorful Indian attire.

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Opening Prayers

Om Sahanavavatu


Shlokas

Karagre vasate lakshmi
Saraswati Namastubyam
Gurur Brahma Gurur Vishnu
Ekadantam Mahakayam
Mookam Karoti Vaachalam
Ramaya Rama Bhadraya
Manojavam maruta tulya

Activities

Concentration Time : Shell game

Letter of the day : Y for yajna

Story : The Stone soup

Activity : Making butter

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Today we had a combined class of both the sections Section A and Section B.

Sevikas : Ruchi Vyas, Reshma Arun, Jacqueline Gaines and Meena Rajan

We met at the Cafeteria today for our Balavihar. It was fun filled and the kids were very excited and loved the new setting as they were looking forward to making butter the activity of the day.

We settled down after our initial excitement in the new setting as we started class with 3 aums. Following the oms we did our shlokas which we recited loudly and nicely. This was followed by our shell game.

The class was filled with sounds from the class nearby as we were sharing the same hall. But to our great amazement we found children still sitting quiet listening and doing and counting their shells. As we found out how literally the kids despite the chanting from the next class continued counting we were awe struck. Good job. To be quiet from within and be able to focus and concentrate is a great blessing and to get it together at that age is definitely is commendable. I would like to suggest that parents can also ask them for quiet time in the car once a while.

After our shell game was our alphabet safari and the letter of the day was y for yajna. This was a tough word and most definitely kids came with other interesting words like yoga, yellow, yarn so we introduced the word yajna to them. Traditionally yajna is a fire ritual performed to please god. For the ritual, people of the whole town come together and offer their services. A gardener will bring flowers, a grocer will bring grocery, a carpenter will make the place ready for yajna etc. Thus people working together is the yajna spirit. So we can all work together even when we are not performing a fire ritual when we work together it is called the yajna spirit. To get this idea across we then heard the story of the stone soup.

Three monks come to a village, carrying nothing more than a small empty cooking pot. Upon their arrival, the villagers close their doors and are unwilling to share any of their food stores with the monks. Then the monks go to a stream and fill the pot with water, and get fire wood and setup fire in middle of the village. Then a little girl comes out gets curious and asks what they were doing. When she heard they were making stone soup she gets curious. Then she helps get three stones in it, and place it in the cooking pot with the water. One of the villagers becomes curious and asks what they are doing. The travellers answer that they are making "stone soup", which tastes wonderful, although it still needs a little bit of garnish to improve the flavour, which they are missing. The villager does not mind parting with a few carrots to help them out, so that gets added to the soup. Another villager walks by, inquiring about the pot, and the monks again mention their stone soup which has not reached its full potential yet. The villager hands them a little bit of seasoning to help them out. More and more villagers walk by, each adding another ingredient. Finally, a delicious and nourishing pot of soup is enjoyed by all.

So we related how happy people were as they worked together which definitely conveyed the spirit of yajna.

 After story was ofcourse the most interesting activity of the day the reason we assembled at the cafeteria .....making butter.

It was such a happy experience all kids trying to shake the whipped cream so hard and in the end how they enjoyed having their snack of crackers with butter. 

This class was definitely one of the most memorable class of the year with so many happy faces and smiles it was wonderful. Next week May 11th is cord walkathon so we will not have any classes. We will meet again in a classroom back on May 18th. Till then enjoy the good weather...