Sevikas: Nanda and Jacqueline
Morning 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: One minute of silence and complete accuracy in shell counting. Good going, guys! We need to work on not moving, at all, during our silent time. Some of us still shift our bodies a little ;-) We will continue to work towards our goal of 2 minutes by the end of the year — and we all agree that we can do it!!
Geeta Chanting: Chapter 10, Shlokas 1, 2, 3 and 4 click here for text and audio
Letter of the Week: "R is for Right" and "S is for Smile"
Storytime: "Pollyanna" Our story today illustrated how even though things may seem difficult, we need to practice what Pujya Gurudev instructed us to do ... "Keep on smiling!"
Likhita Japa:
• राम – 21 times click here to view
Sanskrit Words of the Week: none click here to view complete text
Ending Prayers: OM Poornamidah click here for text
Comments: First of all, we want to thank all the families for a wonderful time at Swamiji's bhiksha yesterday. It was a lot of fun — and all that food was absolutely delicious! We started out class today chanting "Parrots, Parrots, listen to me ..."
After our morning prayers and chanting, we reviewed our letters that we have studied thus far — with complete gusto, we are happy to add. Our letters today were "R is for Right" and "S is for Smile." One of our friends raised his hand and politely explained that we were missing a few letters. After O comes P and then Q. (Can't fool these 6 year olds.) Aunty explained that he was right — in the alphabet we learn at our regular school. But because "P stands for Prayer" and "Q stands for Quiet," we will not be able to fully understand these until we go through all of the other Vedantic letters first. So go figure, P comes after Z.
Today's emphasis was on "S is for Smile" — and how important it is for us to keep smiling, even when things seem hard and difficult. There is always a positive side to something and we should constantly be looking for it. To illustrate this concept, Aunty told the story of Pollyanna, a little girl who had lots of difficulties in life — but in the face of all those hardships, she always found something positive to smile about.
Parents, you will be extremely proud to know that your children have made tremendous leaps in the likhita japa segment. We were delighted to learn that nearly every child is able to write राम with confidence and accuracy on the dry erase boards. There were only two or three children who still wanted to use the tracing cards. Everyone else did independent writing — and they did great!!
We began our first day of formal rehearsal for the End of the Year Performance. Some roles were assigned and we practiced our stage entrance. As you can imagine, it was a little chaotic in the classroom when we started. Well, we take that back — it was quite chaotic ... but in a really fun way:-) Because of time constraints, we were not able to assign all of the children their roles. However, we assured them that within the next few classes everyone will know their role. And, more importantly, everyone will have a puppet and a part to play. Just so you know, parents, we plan to document all of our rehearsals so we can share them with you at the end of the year. Once every child's role has been determined, we will post all the details on the blog for you.
From this point onwards, we will be working on the play during class — after we have completed our curriculum. There may be times when we need you to be patient with us and let your child remain in class a few extra minutes after our ending time. Also, we request (actually beg) that everyone arrive on time. Because we have so much to go over in class, we really need every minute of class time.
Two thumbs up on the Geeta chanting, kids! We are now on Shloka 4. We will start Shloka 5 in March. Please continue to work with your child at home. We really recommend utilizing the Geeta blog for proper pronunciation and memorization. Each shloka is broken up into individual lines to make study more efficient. Definitely check it out if you haven't done so. Also, you can register your child on-line.
It sure was fun spending all this time with you kids this weekend. Have a super week — and we'll look forward to seeing you again on Sunday.
Sheshu, we hope you are feeling better :-)
Pujya Gurudev Swami Chinmayananda
