Next Class: March 2nd
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
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Section A : Ruchi Vyas and Reshma Arun
We had a sunny and bright morning today. The sun was smiling at us. And guess what? The letter of the day was 'S' for smile! We had a big smiley face drawn on the white board when kids arrived. This gave everybody a clue as to what we were going to discuss for the class. As usual we started with three Om's and shlokas followed by the quiet time/shell dropping. Today we all focused for a full 90 sec. It's a great achievement as we are developing the skill of getting more and more focused.
Geeta chanting went very well. We will be starting the fourth shloka in our next class. Please keep practicing the shlokas at home. The registration is now open on chinmaya website. Please take a moment to register your child for the competition. It will be a great experience for the kids.
We moved on to the topic of the day. Letter 's' for 'smile'. What is a smile? Why do we smile? What makes us smile? Do we like our friends crying or smiling? We all agreed that when we smile, we feel happy, we make friends, people want to talk to us, we look prettier and we stay healthy. It takes more effort to frown than to smile! Smiling is contagious. When you smile, the people around you also start to smile. We make the world a little happier when we smile. Our Gurudev Swami Chinmayananda always said to us to "KEEP SMILING". We heard a story about a girl, who gave a million dollar smile. We also made a list of things that make us smile but at the end, we realized that we really do not need anything to make us happy. If we decide, we can smile. In addition, it is not what you wear from top to bottom, but what you wear from left to right that matters. So "Do not leave your home without a smile".
We all enjoyed making a beautiful smiley face craft (which could be changed into a frowning face). We shared the art supplies while making the craft and also helped each other to finish it. We learned to smile and share with each other. It was so much fun changing the smiles into a frown and back in our craft. The class was full of fun and laughter. We all cleaned up and it was time to go to the auditorium for Aarti and pledge and a quiz program from 5th grade. We hope you all enjoyed the show.
Have a great week and we will see you next class.
Section B : Jacqueline Gaines and Meena Rajan
It was a bright sunny beautiful day. The snow mountains around us is fast disappearing and yes we had suuny faces of little one's ready for their Sunday balavihar.
We started as always with 3 om's. This was followed by the our shlokas and gita chanting. Parents are definitely keeping the kids busy chanting gita as we can hear them chanting loud and clear the gita in class. Next week we have told that the kids are going to lead the gita first three verses and all the aunties are going to just listen. The fourth verse we will continue learning. Parents pls do register for the gita chanting competition as this definitely helps the kids show what they have learnt.
Now we have another very exciting news: today we had 3 and half minutes of quiet time — without moving or talking. This was amazing and yes children are becoming more focused and are concentrating in their class. We definitely saw some exceptions as about 50% kids got the right count but just to sit for so long quiet without moving was well worth congratulating them.
Today we did N for Nobility and we told the great story of Gandhiji..
As Mahatma Gandhi stepped aboard a train one day, one of his shoes slipped off and
landed on the tracks below. He was unable to retrieve it as the train began to move. To
the amazement of his companions, Gandhiji calmly took off his other shoe and threw it
back along the tracks to land close to the first one that had slipped off. When a fellow
passenger asked why he did so, Gandhiji smiled and said, “The poor man who finds the
shoe lying on the tracks, will now have a pair he can use.” Many noble acts like lthis
brought the title Mahatma meaning “a great soul” to Gandhiji.
O for Obedience.. We asked a few questions to get the children to think
What if no one follows the road signs while driving?
What if all beings decide that they do not want to obey the rules of nature and just do
what they feel like doing?
The world will be chaotic; our life will be chaotic. When everyone and everything works in an orderly fashion, there is harmony. To maintain this harmony, all things and beings have to obey the rules of nature. This is called obedience.
The kids came participating with full energy as they talked why it was very important for their little brothers and sisters to be obedient and how they are given rules about how to climb stairs and how not to touch something hot etc. It was wonderful to see kids understanding and participating with their own examples.
R is for Right
What do you understand by doing the right thing? The right this is, to do what is
morally good, just and correct.
Why should we do what is right? If we do the right thing in life, it will bring us good
rewards and happiness. Also do what is right, no matter what everyone else says or
does.
and S is for Smile.
We started the conversation with few questions...
Who likes to smile? We all love to smile. Why?
When we smile, we feel hapy.
When we smile, we make friends.
When we smile, people want to talk to us.
When we smile, we make other people also happy.
When we smile, our parents are happy.
When we smile, our teachers are happy.
When we smile, we stay healthy
When we smile, we make the world a little happier.
Do you know that it takes more effort to frown than to smile? You use more number of
muscles to frown than to smile. Smiling is a lot easier. And smiling is also contagious!
As the kids started this they did their smiley face craft and how to smile is so much easier than a frown. We did have a lot of ground covered today but we plan to reinforce the concepts as we go. Since the letters went together we got them covered as a group of letters.
We did explain to the children how alphabet, “R” comes after “O.” in our alphabet safari. To the curious mind we did explain the reason why? This is because we first need to learn all the values of the alphabet except P and Q.
After we learn all these values, we become fit to do prayers to the Lord. What is the
result? The result is, we become quiet, and learn about the letter Q.
Therefore, after “Z,” are letters “P” for prayer and “Q” for quiet. Since we had to take
letters “P” and “Q” out of the normal order, letter “R” comes after “O.”
So, parents once again please keep the conversation on and yes see you all again next week. Till then take care and get ready for another cold week ahead...
