Reminder for parents:
- Please pick up the children in the auditorium after 11.30am or after Arthi and Pledge.
- Please send in something for show and tell (anything that they want to share like for example, a picture of their favorite God/Goddess - no parents/siblings please:-))
- Please register for the Geeta Chanting competition.
Click here to register online for the Geeta Chanting competition on Apr 25'09
Today's class - 22 Feb 09
Beginning Prayers:
Om Sahana Vavathu
Early morning prayer - Karaagre Vasathe Lakshmi
Prayer for Lord Ganesha - Vakratunda Mahakaaya
Prayer for Goddess Saraswathi - Saraswathi Namastubhyam
Ending Prayers:
Asatho maa sad gamaya
Om Poornamadah Poornamidam
Bhajans:
Great God Ganapathy
My God is so great(click here for audio)
Gita:
- Chapter 9, Shlokas 1 and 2
We reviewed the 2 stories about Shiva from last week.
Art Project:
We traced Om Namah Shivaya in Sanskrit and started making our booklet on Lord Shiva.
Comments:
- We started off the class with our usual prayers and today the entire class was the teacher for the Bhajans. It was nice to see even a relative newcomer like Anushya sing well!
- We have a highly communicative and articulate group with a good sense of humor! For instance, we usually request them to open their hands like a book when we do 'Karaagre Vasathe' and some of them complained that they have left their books at home and need to borrow them from the Aunties! They of course gave it back :-) There was a lot of curiosity to know about Mamtha Aunty's beaded braids (From her vacation in Mexico:-))
- But having a highly vocal group does have its challenges as everyone is eager to talk either to the Aunties or to their neighbors!! There are of course a few who are a little bit reticent but almost everyone is eager nowadays to come up to the front and recite the shlokas/bhajans.
- Anushka came up with a good question during the Shloka time - why is that the Gods never die or not get hurt at all? We had a discussion later on about the topic and talked about the difference between good and bad and about being good on the inside.
- We practised the first 2 shlokas from the Bhagavad Gita Ch 9 - all of them are quite familiar with the pronunciation and they have promised to teach their parents and get them to recite it in class next time :-) Please review it with them and also register for the competition which is on April 25, 2009.
- Since it was Shivaratri today we discussed more about Lord Shiva like what He holds and how He looks. We talked about the other 2 forms of Shiva namely the Lingam and the dancing Shiva, Nataraja.
- Ananth shared the diorama which he had made in the Balavihar summer camp last year which had a Shiva Linga and a picture of Lord Nataraja.
- We quickly reviewed the 2 stories from last week.
- We started doing our booklet on Shiva and finished tracing the 'Om Nama Shivaya' and gluing the picture of Shiva in it. We will continue and finish it in the next class. If you can send in glue sticks with the children that would be very helpful.
- We sang 'Happy Birthday' for Tanika and thanked her for the nice chocolate treats. We would like to encourage other parents too to celebrate their children's birthday in Balavihar class! (please give us some advance notice).
- Next class is on March 8 - other classes in March are 15th and 22nd.
