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

Gita chanting - 1st 5 verses of Chapter 14

Activities

Concentration Time : Shell game

Letter of the day : P for prayer

Story :  God's beautiful creation

Activity : Likita japa


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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

Today was a beautiful sunny day in spring. We all assembled together both the sections all wearing beautiful indian dresses. We had boys looking good wearing colorful embroidered kurtas and payjamas. The girls were all pretty wearing ghagra choli, pawadai chattai and salwar kameez all in various different style as they were all set for their picture to be taken. After the initial chatter and excitement we started our class.

We started the class as usual with our 3 om's. After this we told all our shlokas. It was a nice experience to see how all the kids sang together kids from both sections participating prompting one shloka after another with the same enthusiasm. We then chanted the 5 verses of gita all together again. Thank you parents for making them practice they were loud. They also remembered to end with "OM Tat sat, Sri krishnarpanamastu".

After gita chanting was our quiet time and shell game. We had lot of distractions in our class as still some kids were coming in and we were collecting the consent forms and money from parents. We also had the picture taken just outside our class. But the kids kept quiet for a complete 2 minutes and many of them told that they heard nothing but the shells. We must agree we have a lot to learn from these little one's.

Then we proceeded to our syllabus. The letter of the day was P for Prayer. As the kids might have already told you we left out P as we proceeded from A to Z in alphabet safari for the end as P was a very special alphabet. Ruchi aunty told us the story of the God's beautiful creation.

Once upon a time, there lived a king who did not believe in God. He thought God was just a figment of weak people's imagination and if children were never told of God, they would never think of or believe in God.

After a few years the king had a son. The queen died soon after the boy was born leaving the baby to be brought up by the king.  The King shut the child in a tower  because he did not want the child to hear about god.  Teachers and maids took care of the boy but they were all asked by the king never to talk or discuss about God.

One day when the King came to visit his son, he was surprised to see his son standing before the window. He was staring out of the window with his head bowed and hands clasped together. When the king asked his son what he was doing the prince said "Father, I am bowing to the Creator".

Stunned the king asked his son. "Which creator? What Creator? Who told you of a Creator? ". The young boy replied "Nobody has told me. Why should anyone have to tell me of His existence? I can see the beautiful the world from my window - the mountains, the sky, the green plains, the trees, the flowers, the trees, the birds and the animals. Someone must have created all these. He must be great to create such beauty, so I am bowing to Him in wonder. He must love all of us to give us all this, so I am bowing to Him in love and gratitude."

The king slowly walked back, ashamed and humbled by his son's wisdom.

Once we finished our story it was our time to get our class picture to be taken. We formed a single line and then got our picture taken. Then we assembled back in the classroom and completed our likita japa. We finally ended our class with the closing prayers.

We had fun having the kids and yes this year we had the extra special picture day. We will meet you again next week. Till then enjoy the beautiful weather...