Home Fun Work:
• Click here for a "Connect the Dots" activity page. Be sure and have your child count aloud as he/she completes the drawing!
• Click here to print the next drawing page in our animal series.
Extra Home Fun Work:
• Coloring Pages for Sanskrit Numbers 1-10 (click here to download)
• Coloring Pages for Sanskrit Numbers 11-20 (click here to download)
Click here for Flashcard Set: Numbers 1-10 (in Sanskrit)
Click here for Flashcard Set: Numbers 11-20 (in Sanskrit)
Click here for Flashcard Set: Animals (with pictures) (in Sanskrit)
If you wish to download these flashcards to your iPhone, click here for instructions
Morning Prayers:
• Saha naavaavatu (click here for text)
• Vakratunda Mahaakaaya (click here for text)
• Sarasvati Namastubhyam (click here for text)
• Shree Hanuman (click here for text)
• Shree Krishna (click here for text)
Quiet Time: none (click here for game instructions)
Geeta Chanting: Ch 11, Shlokas 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 (click here for audio and text)
Letter of the Week: "M is for Mother" and "N is for Noble"
Likhita Japa: 5 Minutes of Likhita Japa Game (click here for instructions)
Activity: (Click here to view project ) Made a watercolor mandala which is to be completed by the child at home. Please have your child spend a few minutes each day performing likhita japa in one of the concentric circles — starting with the outer circle and ending with the inner circle. These should be brought back to our next class to put in their journals.
Ending Prayers:
Poornamidah (click here for text)
Chinmaya Pledge (click here for text)
Comments: Before we start talking about our morning's activities, we want to extend a very big "Hari OM!" to our new friend, Uday. He joined us for the first time today — and we're very excited to have him in class. Uday, we hope that you will have a lot of fun with all your new friends every Sunday morning!
Well, today was definitely a busy one — we sure covered a lot of material. After our prayers, we jumped right into our Alphabet Safari ... reviewing letters A through L. It's clear that these kids have a pretty good handle on all of the definitions we've been discussing these past few months :-)
This week's class combined two letters – "M is for Mother" and "N is for Noble." We spent some time talking about all the great things our mothers do for us ... how much they sacrifice and work for us. Just like Father is God, so, too is Mother ... Mother is God. We pointed to the story that we told in "I is for Intelligence" — Lord Ganesha circling his parents for the celestial fruit. He showed us that parents are God and the world to us! We then went on to talk about other Mothers we worship. For example, we have Mother Nature, Mother Earth, Mother India, Mother Shruti, and the sacred Mother Cow. No question about it — Mother is to be worshipped!! As an assignment for this week, the kids have all agreed to do something nice for their mothers — without telling them about it, or asking for anything in return. Let's see how that goes ... :-)
This led us to our next letter "N is for Noble." Things got a little more complicated at this point ... not an easy concept to grasp (not even for us adults :-) So, to illuminate this value we told the story of Punyakoti — an all-time favorite! Nothing can shine light on the definition of "Noble" like this story!
We began our likhita japa journal workshop today — and we had a great time!! The kids did amazingly well with the likhita japa focus game — most of them got it! We will be doing this exercise weekly. Parents: please note that we have the children's likhita japa paintings from last week – we are putting them in their journals. The aunties will be keeping the journals until the end of the Balavihar year. At that time we will hand the books over to your children for safe keeping (and continued summer work :-)
Unfortunately, we did not have time to paint our drawings today. If you have a paintbrush at home, please have your child brush water onto their drawings to make a water color painting. If you do not have a brush, dipping a crumpled up paper towel in water, and then rubbing gently onto the paper, should do the trick. Regardless, please have your child do their likhita japa in one of the rings each day. Don't forget to bring the painting to class on Sunday so we can put it in their journal!!
We were so impressed with the children's work from last week ...
The sun is calling all of us to venture outdoors ... what a wonderful change from our icy week! We hope you all have a great week and we look forward to seeing you next Sunday.
Hugs to all of our young friends!
