March 20 Class: Section 1

Sevikas: Mamtha Rao and Jacqueline Gaines




Home Fun Work:
• Click here for the next drawing in our animal series
• Click here for राम tracing sheet
• Click here for Vedic OM tracing sheet

Extra Home Fun Work:
• Click here for our "Sponge Art Animals" Flashcard Set

Morning Prayers:
• OM Saha Naavavatu (click here for text)
• Vakratunda Mahaakaaya (click here for text)
• Sarasvati Namastubhyam (click here for text)
• Shree Hanumaan (click here for text)
• Shree KrishnaH (click here for text)

Quiet Time: 1 minute of silence followed by our shell counting game (click here for game instructions)

Geeta Chanting: Chapter 11, Shlokas 1-8 (click here for audio and text)

Letter of the Week: "U is for Unity"

Story: "Stone Soup" by Jon J. Muth (click here to view book cover)

Likhita Japa: Continued working in our journals and learned how to draw a Vedic OM (click here for the tracing sheet)

Ending Prayers:
• OM PoornamidaH (click here for text)
• Chinmaya Pledge (click here for text)

Comments: Boy, did we have a busy class!!! We tried to stay very focused for all of our morning disciplines so we could move on to our letter of the week. The aunties must say that these kids did great — their Geeta Chanting is coming along very nicely, they stayed with the pebble count during our quiet time (nearly everyone got the right number!), and they recited the alphabet letters we have learned thus far — with complete definitions. Gee, if only the aunties had studied the Vedanta alphabet when we were their age :-)

Now comes the juicy part ... today's letter was "U is for Unity." We asked the kids if they knew what the word meant. It got quiet for a few seconds, and then someone shouted out "Being Together!" That was exactly what we were looking for — "togetherness." But then we asked, "Does it mean that we should all be doing the same thing at the same time?" A lot of the kids shook their heads yes. This was a great opportunity to elaborate on this very complex word. We talked about how we have only one body, yet our body has many different parts that need to do separate functions in order to make the body work. For example, our eyes cannot smell, our ears cannot taste, our hands do not pump blood, etc. In the same way, if people are united and work for a common (and greater) goal, then that is unity -- and everything will function just as it should!

A few raised eyebrows caught our attention. At this point, we decided to read our much loved book, "Stone Soup" by Jon J Muth.  If you are not familiar with this very rich and beautiful children's story, definitely put it on your list to borrow from the library. Jon J. Muth has taken this traditional European tale and turned it into a true treasure. He shows us that unity and sharing is what happiness is all about. This story is set in an old Chinese village with three monks on a quest to find out "What makes one happy."

After our story time, we moved on to our likhita japa segment. In the spirit of our letter of the week, we spent some time talking about the many different OMs that are written throughout the world. We saw the Tamil OM, the Telugu OM, the Malayalam OM, the Balinese OM, the Tibetan OM, the Sanskrit OM and the Bengali OM. Oh yes ... and the coolest one of all was the Vedic OM. We studied the many differences in their appearances, yet we all agreed that they all represent the same thing — unity with God. The kids then settled into their journals learning to write the Vedic OM with a tracing sheet. And they did extremely well!! (We will try our best to have some made for the other languages, too.)

And so, it looks like we are on another mini-break. Next class is scheduled for April 3. In the meantime, don't forget to go outside and play. And, even more importantly, don't forget to "Keep Smiling" — remember, this is an instruction from our Pujya Gurudev! In fact, why don't we  leave "being serious" to the ol' fuddy duds — it's just not fun!

Lots of hugs to our young friends.

Mar 13 Class: Section 1

Sevikas: Mamtha Rao and Jacqueline Gaines




Home Fun Work:
• Click here for the next drawing in our animal series.
• Click here for a mandala drawing to practice likhita japa with.
• Click here for a tracing sheet to practice writing राम
• Click here for a tracing sheet to practice writing ऊँ नमः शिवाय

Extra Home Fun Work: Click here for Flashcard Study Set. Practice identifying the God/Goddess in each picture. And see if you can identify some of the names in Sanskrit!

Morning Prayers:
• OM Saha Navaavatu (click here for text)
• OM Vakratunda Mahaakaaya (click here for text)
• Sarasvati Namastubhyam (click here for text)
• Shree Krishnah (click here for text)
• Shree Hanumaan (click here for text)

Quiet Time: None (click here for game instructions)

Geeta Chanting: Chapter 11, Shlokas 1–8 (click here for audio and text)

Letter of the Week: "T is for Truth"

Story: The Empty Pot, by Demi (click here to view book cover)

Likhita Japa: The children continued to write in their journals, finishing some of the mandalas from last week. We also introduced a new mandala for them to begin working on.

Ending Prayers: Done in the auditorium

Comments: We missed a lot of our young friends today ... hope you guys aren't sick and just forgot about the time change :-)

Today was a shortened class because we went to the auditorium for our ending prayers.   We started our morning with the usual chit chat ... catching up on all the "happening details of our kindergarten friends." Afterwards, we settled down for our weekly disciplines and Geeta Chanting. We gotta say: "These kids are doing great!!!" Not only were we completely surprised to learn that most everyone in class has the Shree Hanumaan shloka memorized, but these youngsters were really belting out the first 7 shlokas of Geeta, Chapter 11!! Pronunciation was perfect! Posture was looking good!! We were originally scheduled to start Shloka 8 in our first April class, but we thought because everyone was doing so well, we could go ahead and start chanting all 8. We are very confident that these children are going to do well in May!

Our letter of the week was "T is for Truth." This is always a fun letter to discuss, because we all know that we must always tell the truth — no matter what. But the real question is: Do we always do that? And if not, why?? We investigated some of the reasons why someone might hesitate to tell the truth ... such as: "being afraid of getting in trouble," "wanting to impress your friends," "trying to act cool," etc. Everyone had a story to tell :-) So, before we moved to our Likhita Japa segment, we read a really great story about Truthfulness to help us punctuate how important it is to be honest. The book is called "The Empty Pot" by Demi. (You can hear it read in this week's video selections — see the announcement section.) Anyway, we were all moved by the brave act of little Ping in bringing his empty pot to the Emperor. (This aunty never fails to get a little choked up when the Emperor questions Ping.)  It proves that we must always be brave and truthful, even if it seems difficult — only good things will come of it.

And ... we talked about the beauty of the illustrations. In this book the artist chose to paint the pictures in the style of the traditional Chinese landscape art — where the landscapes are quite majestic, and the people are always shown very small in scale (unlike our Western art.) This lead to a discussion on the word "Humble." which we all agreed we could add to our Vedanta alphabet.

Before we knew it, time was up and we had to get ready to head to the auditorium for the 9th grade performance — which was really fun to watch, by the way.

We hope you all have a great week — and we look forward to seeing everyone again next Sunday. Hopefully, the effects of our time change will be over :-)

Hugs to all our young friends!

March 6 Class: Section 1

Sevikas: Mamtha Rao and Jacqueline Gaines



Home Fun Work:
• Click here for राम tracing sheet.
• Click here for ऊँ नमः शिवाय tracing sheet.
• Click here for the next drawing in our Animal Series

Extra Home Fun Work: Click here for an abstract "Color by Number" page in Sanskrit.

Morning Prayers:
• OM Saha Naavavatu (click here for text)
• Vakratunḍa Mahakāya (click here for text)
• Sarasvati Namastubhyam (click here for text)
• śrī Hanumān (click here for text)
• śrī Krishnaḥ (click here for text)

Quiet Time: 1 minute of silence and shell counting game (click here for instructions)

Geeta Chanting: Chapter 11, Shlokas 1 – 7 (click here for text and audio)

Letter of the Week: "S is for Smile"

Focus Game: "Try to make me laugh!"

Likhita Japa: Finished Lord Shiva Mandalas for our journals. Some children worked on Lord Krishna's peacock feather.

Ending Prayers:
• Om Poornamidaḥ (click here for text)
• Chinmaya Mission Pledge (click here for text)

Comments: First we want to welcome Gowri to our class! Today was her first day in Balavihar and we are extremely happy to have her join us. We hope that she will have lots of fun with all of her new friends every Sunday!

Well, we certainly had a tremendous amount of energy in class today. If you happened to be in the hallway this morning, you no doubt heard the children proudly chanting The Geeta (and the Alphabet Safari :-). Great going, Kids — we hope you keep up the energy for the competition in April!

After our morning disciplines, we settled into our lesson for today — "S is for Smile." We talked about the scientific studies that have been discovered about smiling ... 1)  that it's good for your health; 2) it takes more energy and muscles to frown; and 3) it's contagious! Smiling definitely makes the world a much happier place and no one is immune to a happy smile. A genuine smile can take all the sadness away and before you know it everyone around you is smiling! To prove our point, we had the children try to keep a frown on their face while the aunties laughed away. As you can imagine, everyone was roaring with laughter before we knew it. We mustn't forget Gurudev's instructions: "Keep smiling!"

Happily, we had 20 minutes to work in our likhita journals today. Some of the children completed the Shiva Lingams from last week, while other children worked on Lord Krishna's peacock feather. Parents: these children are doing amazingly well! We can't wait for you to see all of their work at the end of the school year. They are becoming very focused and showing a lot of confidence in their writing. We are also pleased to see so many Home Fun Work pages at the beginning of class. It's wonderful that your children are doing their likhita japa at home. Please take a few minutes and look at their great work in our weekly art gallery (slideshow above.)

We started Shloka 7 today in our Geeta chanting. It was very clear that these kids have been working during the week :-) Because the preliminaries are the end of next month, we are going to introduce shloka 8 at the end of March. This will give us four classes to practice chanting all 8 shlokas before the competition begins. Please take a few minutes and register your child for the competition. For your convenience, online registration is available. (click here for registration.)

No doubt about it — spring is around the corner. Aunty reminded us that we are having a time change next weekend, so make sure you remember to set your clocks. In the meantime, enjoy this marvelous weather. It's such a joy seeing some of the color shifts in nature ....

Hugs to all of your kids. Look forward to our next party with God!!!