If your child is missing a lightweight blue jacket or a white cotton handkerchief with purple flowers, please see one of the aunties.
Sevikas: Mamtha Rau and Jacqueline Gaines
Home Work Fun: Please print out this picture and discuss with your child who this picture is of, and why he is so important to us. (click here for image.)
Morning Prayers:
• Saha navaavatu (click for text)
• Karagre Vasate
• Vakratunda Mahakaya (click for text)
• Sarasavati Namastubhyam (click for text)
• Shree KrishnaH (click for text)
Quiet Time/Focus Activity: One full minute of silence and some pretty good shell counting! We have promised to try and trick the kids next class :-)
Geeta Chanting: Chapter 11, Shlokas 1 and 2
Letter of the Week: "A is for Aspiration" and "A is for Ahimsa."
Story Time: Mahatma Gandhi and what he aspired for.
Activity: Each child took a turn spinning cotton on a Book Charkha. (click here to see a picture of the charkha .)
Likhita Japa: ऊँ 21 times (click here to view tracing sheet.)
Ending Prayers:
• Om Poornamidah (click here for text)
• Chinmaya Pledge (click here for text)
Comments: Whoosh — this morning sure was busy! We added a new prayer today — Shree KrishnaH. We spent a few minutes talking about the meaning of this prayer ... and why it is so incredibly beautiful!
You will notice that the children have begun their Geeta Chanting for Chapter 11. We introduced Shloka 2 ... and everyone did Absolutely Awesome with repeating after the aunties! We will continue working on Shlokas 1 and 2 for the month of October — and then we will add one new shloka per month.
Our topic today was "A is for Aspiration" (defined as "dedication to fulfilling a goal") — and there is no better person to exemplify aspiration than Mahatma Gandhiji! We talked about how this shy little boy grew up and became the Father of India. We then went on and talked about one of the Mahatma's aspiration for the world ... "Ahimsa" and what that word meant. After we spent a good chunk of time talking about his life, hard work, dedication and devotion, we pulled out a book charkha to show the children what Gandhiji loved doing most ... spinning cotton. Each child got a turn to spin some cotton on this wonderful little tool ... and then took some cotton and thread home to put in their treasure box.
As you know, we are starting to gear up for the October 24th CORD walkathon. Our kindergartners will definitely be participating in this event, so please be sure and mark your calendars. Also note that we will meet directly at the park on this day. Please keep checking the blog for more details — which will be posted shortly. We'll even be bombarding you will lots of emails over the next few weeks :-)
Well, fall is definitely here. Naavaratri, Diwali, and of course, Halloween are lurking around the corner. We wish everyone lots of fun preparations and look forward to seeing you all again next Sunday. And even though everything seems really crazy and busy right now, don't forget to go outside and take a walk every now and then ... just to admire God's great paintings!
