Sevikas: Ruchi and Jacqueline
Prayers:
• Om Saha Naavavatu (click here for text)
• Vakratunda Mahakaya (click here for text)
• Sarasvati Namastubhyam (click here for text)
• Shree KrishnaH (click here for text)
Quiet Time: 1 minute of silence, with some pretty accurate shell counting during our focus game. Great job, kids!!
Geeta Chanting: Chapter 10, Shlokas 1, 2 and 3 (click here for audio and text)
Story: Lord Ganesha Circles His Parents
Homework: Lord Ganesha Stand Up Card (click here to view)
Likhita Japa:
• Children wrote राम 21 times (click here to view tracing card).
• Children wrote ऊँ 36 times
Sanskrit Words of the Week: मूषकः (muuShakaH, mouse), मयूरः (mayuuraH, peacock), and बुद्धि (buddhi, intellect) (click here to view list)
Sanskrit Learning:
• KrishnaH vadati (click here to view text)
• Counting, 1 – 5 (click here to view numbers)
End of Class Prayers: Aarti and prayers were conducted in the auditorium.
Comments: We sure had a lot of energy and enthusiasm in our class today — in spite of the heavy rain outside :-)
After we reviewed our alphabet learning thus far, we dove into our new letter of the week — "I is for Intelligence." Our group discussion was quite lively during circle time. The children were very interactive as we explored "What is intelligence," "What is the difference between us and animals," and "How can we use our intellect wisely?" Once we exhausted all of the physical differences between us and animals, we touched on the key difference ... that people have a well developed mind and intellect which allows us to make right and wrong choices. Animals do not. The children all agreed that this did not mean we were better than animals, just that this is the main difference :-)
This lively discussion led us into our story time, which was about how Lord Ganesha and Subrahmanya were given the challenge of circling the world for the celestial fruit. Subrahmanya immediately jumped onto his peacock and began his journey, while Lord Ganesha pondered over this task and realized that if he circled his parents, that was equivalent to circling the world. Lord Ganesha used his intellect, instead of immediately acting! No matter how many times we hear this story, it is an all-time favorite ...
We introduced a new tracing card today for the likhita japa segment. We learned last week that many of the children were not very confident with writing ऊँ, so we decided to add this to our curriculum along with writing राम. If you are interested in having your child continue this writing at home, please feel free to download the tracing sheets from the blog. We couldn't be more proud of how well these kids are doing during this segment. Once we return from winter break, we will probably be able to use real paper journals for them to do their likhita japa in. Most of the kids are remembering how to properly write the strokes!
Make sure you check your child's backpack. We sent home a fun art project for him/her to assemble. All you need to provide is a glue stick. The children are to arrange the pre-cut pieces of paper to resemble Lord Ganesha. Click here to see the finished sample and instructions.
The aunties had a really great time today — hope you kids did, too! Keep practicing your Geeta Chanting — we're going to continue with Shlokas 1, 2 and 3 next week. But come January, we're planning to move up to Shloka 4.
Hope everyone stays warm and dry. Today is a good day for some nice hot chocolate ... (with marshmallows, of course.)
Next week's lesson: "J is for ________" And here's a hint: It's not "jack-o-lantern" or "jelly bean."
p.s. For our helper mom who was interested in the music we played today: The album is "Divine Chants of Ganesha" by Uma Mohan.
Pujya Gurudev Swami Chinmayananda
