Sevikas: Mamtha Rao and Jacqueline Gaines
Home Fun Work
• Print this page. Have your child fill it in with राम (Raama).
• Print this "Color By Number" page in Sanskrit. Be sure to have your child say the numbers and colors aloud as they fill in the triangles.
Click here for Sanskrit numbers 1-5 (with English translation)
Click here for Sanskrit Color Names
Click here for short video on Sanskrit Colors.
For extra, extra work: Click to print Coloring Pages on Sanskrit Numbers 1-10.
Morning Prayers:
• OM saha naavavatu (click here for text)
• Vakratunda Mahaakaaya (click here for text)
• Sarasvati namastubhyam click here for text)
• Shree KrishnaH (click here for text)
Quiet Time: 1 minute and 30 seconds — and a great round of shell counting! (click here for game instructions)
Geeta Chanting: Chapter 11, Shlokas 1, 2, 3 and 4 (click here for audio and text)
Letter of the Week: G is for God
Activities:
• Reviewed Sanskrit colors (click here for text)
• Reviewed Sanskrit numbers 1-5 (click here for text)
Likhita Japa: wrote राम 21 times (click here for tracing sheet)
Ending Prayers: Aarti and Chinmaya pledge were done in the auditorium.
Comments: Sure was good seeing everyone today after our mini break! We started our morning off with a quick "show and tell" of the work that the kids did over Thanksgiving break. The aunties were definitely impressed with everyone's likhita japa practice — and someone even took the challenge and did the mystery "Color by Number" page in Sanskrit. Please take a minute and view their art work in the slide show above. :-)
Well, we weren't at all rusty with our shlokas — the kids lead the aunties in prayers ... and chanted very nicely (and loudly.) We even got some very detailed descriptions about the prayer's meaning.
After our quiet time we immediately moved to our Geeta Chanting segment. We chanted Shlokas 1 and 2 with ease, but discovered that shlokas 3 and 4 were a bit tricky. Parents: please don't hesitate in using the blog for at-home practice. We will be working with the first 4 shlokas throughout December and will then introduce Shloka 5 when we restart classes in January. It is our goal to complete all 8 shlokas by April — which will then give us a month to work solidly on all 8 shlokas together.
The children are doing beautifully with their likhita japa segment. They are understanding the sound that each letter makes as they write राम (raama). And we gotta say — their handwriting is quite impressesive, to boot! We definitely encourage you to print out the tracing sheet and have them continue to write over break. Once we feel that they are getting the letter sequence and strokes down, we plan to move our likhita japa segment into journal keeping and the importance of writing in it daily. If this aunty can get it together over break, one of our class activities in January will be having the children bind their own books the authentic way — with needle and thread :-)
After we reviewed the alphabets we learned so far, we moved on to our topic of the day: "G is for God." We spent a good chunk of time discussing "Who is God?" "Can we see God?" "Why can some people see God?" "Where is God?" "How do we thank God?" These kids are clearly smart beyond their years! It is obvious that they are understanding the concept of the need to continuously cleanse our mind and heart. Then, and only then, will we be be able to see God always — everywhere. We must learn to talk to Him constantly with prayer, likhita japa, quiet time, etc. Boy, this auntie sure wishes that when she was 6 years old, she attended Balavihar and knew half of what these kids know :-)
Hard to believe, but we are are now in the midst of another mini-break. There will be no class on December 12th. Instead, we invite you to make your way to the ashram for the yagna that will be taking place. It sounds like it's going to be a very grounding, spiritual retreat.
In the meantime, we wish everyone another relaxing and peaceful week. Stay warm ... the kids told us today that snow is in the forecast during the next few days. Hopefully, it will be enough to make a snowman or igloo with.
Hugs to everyone — especially to a few of our friends who were not able to make class today.
Pujya Gurudev Swami Chinmayananda
