Announcements
Next Balavihar : November 10th
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Sevikas : Jacqueline Gaines, Meena Rajan
Room No : C-105
Ruchi Malaviya, Reshma Arun
Room No : C-105
Ruchi Malaviya, Reshma Arun
Room No: C-106
It was a bright sunny and pleasant day today and as usual we were happy to see smiling happy faces of children in the classes. Here's a jist of what we did today.
Opening Prayers
Shlokas
Gita Chanting
Activities
• Concentration Time : Shell game
• Story Time : Fathers Day
Once there was a dad called Sonora Todd who lived in Washington DC. Sonora's mother had died while giving birth to her sixth child and her father who was civil war veteran had to take care of six children including the new born.
After Sonora grew up she realized it took lot of hard work and sacrifice to bring up six children. In the eyes of the little girl her father was courageous, selfless and loving man. On Mother's day while listening to speeches about mothers Sonora thought "Wouldn't it be nice to honor dads also"
She wanted all dad's in America to be honored so she chose June 19th her father's birthday, as the day to pay tribute to all dads in Washington DC. Almost sixty years later President Lyndon Johnson chose third sunday of June to be fathers day.
Activity Time : I Love you card for Daddy
Comments
Section 1
It was quite a chilly morning this Sunday. we warmed ourselves with loud Oms and yoga stretches. Chitra aunty joined us in class today. she told us the meaning of the slokas we recite and how important it was to calm ourselves by chanting..
we recited the shlokas and the Gita with great enthusiasm.
most of the kids had grasped the first stanza for the Gita chanting and just needed some more practice.
Our meditation/concentration time has improved from 1 minute to almost 1.5 minutes and that's very promising.
During our circle time , we discussed about the qualities of God, how we saw the same qualities in our daddies.
D for Daddy was very exciting. The children shared many wonderful stories about their dads. We learnt 'pitr devo bhava' means fathers are equivalent to gods.. We promised to respect and love our dad who was like god in the family, who protected and cared for us.
the children got excited listening to the story of how Sonora introduced father's day in American and then we began making I love you cards for daddies.
after an exciting class, we calmed down with the likitha japa and then got ready to go to the auditorium.
another beautiful Sunday morning ended with arti and pledge in the auditorium
Section 2
We started our class with 3 om's and proceeded with our shlokas. We notice that most of our friends are chanting both ekadantam mahakayam and verse 1 of gita quite well. We owe a big thank you to all the parents who are practicing the shlokas with the kids. We also feel the need to give a special mention to the kids who have been practicing their listening skills and can keep quiet for over 2 mins now. It was wonderful to see that most of the kids were on target with their shell game were as a group they are supposed to keep quiet and concentrate.
Alphabet safari which is a very important part of the curriculum was next and we revised A to C letters what they stand for before we proceeded to the letter of the day D. Children had lots to say about their dad's and they heard fathers day story with wrapped attention. Right after the story the kids proceeded to make their cards. We wanted the children to express themselves and do a card for their dad. Each child made the card from their imagination and it was wonderful to see how much thought and skills they used to make a great card for their dads. Finally we did our likhita japa our second round to ensure children chant and write rama. Finally we all went to the auditorium were we had the arati and the pledge.
We are going to have any classes for next two weeks. We will meet again at crossroads on November 10th for our next balavihar. So we would ask the parents to do the great job of practicing the shlokas/gita. We would also like to wish all the kids and parents a very happy Diwali.
