Announcements
Next Balavihar : December 15h
********************************
********************************
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
Hari OM Everyone !!
It was a cold morning today and it felt almost like winter and the kids came in with sunny smiles. After thanksgiving break this was our first class and it almost feel like holidays are almost here. Moms dads this is a great time for family fun and discussing alphabet safari what we do in balavihar and practicing shlokas and gita. Here's a brief outline of what we did today...
Opening Prayers
Shlokas
Gita Chanting
• Chapter 14 verse 1, 2 and 3
Activities
• Concentration Time : Shell game
Alphabet Safari : H for Happiness
Story Time :
The boy who lost his smile
This story was about a boy called yash who lost his smile and his mother, teacher, aunty and many others try to find it for him but cannot. However finally when he went to bed his mom kisses him on his cheek and that brings the smile back to his face.
Joseph had a little over coat
Talks about a man called joseph who was always happy as he used his overcoat to make a jacket, a jacket to make a vest, a vest to make a scarf, a scarf to make a tie, a tie to make a handkerchief and handkerchief to a button. Finally he wrote a book about his coat but always kept his cheer and was happy.
Game time
Krishna vadati
Activity Time :
• Likhita Japa : Tracing Ram in sanskrit (राम)
Closing prayers and Pledge
Comments
Section 1
We had a great class today. The day was cold but we had lots of warmth in our hearts. As always the students were full of smiles and had lots of energy to drive the Chinmaya Happy Train! Yes today in addition to our usual prayers ,shlokas and Bhagwat geeta chanting etc. we talked about "Happiness" and learned a lot about what it means to be happy!
First we asked all the students what made them happy. We had an enthusiastic response like pizza made them happy, their family made them happy or their favorite toy made them happy. There were all kinds of interesting answers. We also discussed about what makes one person happy does not necessarily make the other one happy too. Also happiness is a state of mind and it's a choice that we make. We can really decide if we want to be happy or sad. Life can give us many situations but we can always choose to be happy and smiling.
In order to explore this further we made a Chinmaya Happy train. The train whistled "Hari OM, Hari OM" and had a lots of energy and enthusiasm. The train stopped at several destinations like Toyland, Pizza hut and playground etc. But it turns out that Toyland had no toys, Pizza hut had daal, roti and salad and you were not allowed to play in the playground. But since we were the Happy Train, we chose to be happy" NO MATTER WHAT THE SITUATION WAS". At the end we reached the candy land and guess what we, actually had candies (what a surprise!!).
Time flew and it was time to go home. See you all coming Sunday. Please arrive on time. Have a great week and stay warm.
Section 2
We started our class with three om's followed by shlokas and gita chanting. We introduced the 3rd verse today and found some kids very good with verse 1 and 2. Most of the kids are definitely practicing their gita. We still have some kids who are not doing practice at home. We strongly encourage parents to go the gita blog so the kids can listen and practice. Your involvement goes a long way as kids become more confident at class.
Our kids are doing amazing with their silent time and shell game. This is an amazing game and kids just look forward to it. Then we proceeded to our alphabet safari we revised all letter before we started the letter of the day H. When the time came to guess we had everything from hope to hop to home and heart but what came first to mind was happy.
We did two stories today Joseph and his overcoat and the boy who lost his smile. Both showed how happiness was a state of mind and one could be happy no matter what. Then we did Krishna vadati practicing our Sanskrit. This was followed by us singing if you are happy and you know it and the bhajan that makes us happy Ganapati Ganapati palayamam. Then we did our likita japa.
We ended our classroom session with closing prayers. Today we had arati and pledge at the auditorium. We had a great time with all of you hope you had a great time with us too. So keep practicing your gita little one's till we meet again next week.
