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 30 seconds of silence. Great job kids!!!
Geeta Chanting: Chapter 10, Shlokas 1,2 and 3 (click here for audio and text)
Story: None
Activity/Games: Drew pictures of God's Gifts to us. (click here to view art gallery.)
Likhita Japa: Wrote राम 21 times (click here to view tracing sheet)
Sanskrit Learning: Played "KrishnaH vadati" (click here to view text)
Sanskrit Words of the Week: भगवन् (bhagavan, God), देव (deva, God), and शान्ति (shaanti, peace) (click here to view list)
End of Class Prayers: Om PoornamadaH (click here for text)
Homework: None
Comments: We reviewed our alphabet thus far, "A is for Aspiration," "B is for Brotherhood," "C is for Cleanliness," "D is for Dad," "E is for Enthusiasm," and "F is for Friendship." Today's lesson was "G is for God." After our morning prayers, Geeta chanting and quiet time, we spent some circle time sharing our thoughts about God. Lots of questions were asked: "Who is God?" "Can we see Him?" "Where does He live?" "How do we thank God for all the gifts He has given us?" And as you can imagine, we got oodles of answers! Afterwards, the children settled down to draw a picture of what they were thankful for. (click here for art gallery.)
We also spent a few minutes talking about the ways we can thank God for all His wonderful gifts to us. Every child eagerly agreed that we should respect God and do pujas. But when asked about other ways we can show gratitude, there were a few seconds of silence and some serious thinking going on :-) We then explored the meaning of prayer. Prayer is a way for us to talk directly to God and we should always offer Him our gratitude with prayer. And, that when we learn to quiet our mind and sit silently (which is what meditation is), then we will be able to hear God talk to us.
The children are doing great with their likhita japa — we couldn't be more proud of them!! They are able to sit still, quietly chanting राम, while they write. We have discovered that a few of them are now able to write without any visual guidance, and are using the dry erase boards. We will continue to learn how to write राम throughout the month of December. We will also introduce ऊँ next week for those children who are not completely familiar with the strokes.
At the end of our class we played a round of "KrishnaH vadati." We had a lot of fun! Towards the end of the segment, some of the children were feeling pretty confident and offered to be the instruction caller. It was very satisfying to see them so engaged, especially with this being our first attempt at playing the game. We learned 6 verbs in the imperative: उपविशतु (upavishatu, sit), उत्तिष्ठतु (uttishThatu, stand up), उत्पततु (utpatatu, jump), भ्रमतु (bhramatu, spin), नृत्यतु (nrtyatu, dance), and तरतु (taratu, swim). So, whenever time permits, we will continue our Sanskrit Learning segment with games and play.
Parents: please be sure and sign in your child when you bring them to class. We are trying to streamline our attendance taking, so that we will have more time for fun — and less time for administrative work :-)
Nanda aunty, if you are reading this blog while in India, please know that we are sending lots of warm wishes your way. We hope you are having a great time — and look forward to seeing you in January. And guess what? We finally got our first snow!!
Stay warm everyone — see you next week ...
Pujya Gurudev Swami Chinmayananda
