Oct 11

Next class : Oct 18, 2009;

Aarthi in auditorium. Please pickup the children from the front of the auditorium after Aarthi. Swamiji's lecture for parents will be in the auditorium from 10-11.30am.

Announcements:

CORD is Chinmaya Organization for Rural Development. CORD Walkathon is held every year to raise funds for this Seva project. This year it is on Nov 7th. Please click here for more info.

Oct 11, 2009:

Beginning Prayers:

• Om Saha navavathu
• Early morning prayer - Karaagre Vasathe Lakshmi
• Prayer for Lord Ganesha - Vakratunda Mahakaaya
• Prayer for Goddess Saraswathi - Saraswathi Namastubhyam
• Prayer after lighting the lamp - Shubham Karothi Kalyanam

Story:

• About Deepavali/Diwali

Craft:

• Diwali Card

Ending Prayers:

• Asatho maa sath gamaya
• Om Poornamadah Poornamidam

Bhajans:

• Great God Ganapathy (click here for audio)

Bhagavad Geeta:

• Chapter 10 Shloka 1

Comments:

• We have a really huge class now but things are settling down very well. No tears and there was no parent in the classroom from the beginning!!! Children have become familiar with the routine and we seem to be having a very vocal and interactive group!!
• Priyanka, Daksha, Anjali, Bharath, Abhinav and Shweta came up to say the initial prayers. They did a very good job..We have one volunteer for next week - Neil.
• After the initial prayers, we reviewed how to say "my name is .." in Sanskrit (and every one came up to the center to introuduce themselves - mama nama ...).
• We seem to doing very well on the Bhajan - they all sang along with Aunty today!! We will probably start a new Bhajan in the next class..encourage them to sing it for you at home.
• Jeevan uncle told the class a story about Pinku and Dinku and how they celebrate Deepavali. He also told us the two stories behind why we celebrate Deepavali. The class had fun acting out the story - we pretended to take an oil bath, and wear new clothes and light the lamps. And then we pretended to be monkeys following Lord Rama into Ayodhya after his exile. We also discussed how Narakasura was killed by Bhagawan Krishna (Neil even knew the name of Krishna's chakra - Sudarshana - wow!!).
• Then we had a nice craft brought my Mamatha Aunty - we all sat down in a circle very nicely and shared crayons with our neighbors to do the project.
• Once craft was over, we practised the first shloka from Bhagavad Geeta Ch X. We did the first line only over and over so that they can memorize it. Please try to re-inforce it at home by getting them to listen to the audio in the website.

Thanks to Mamatha Aunty, everyone was happy to have a snack at the end of class. For those parents who have signed up for the following weeks, we have around 33 kids registered - so please bring 35 to be on the safer side.

Thanks to all the parents (and big sisters :-)) who donated crayons to the classroom. If you like, you could donate glue sticks, markers, construction paper and any decorative items like foam stickers, glitter glue and sequins that you can spare.

A very Happy Deepavali from all of us to the Pre-K families. Hope to see all the children in their fine Deepavali dresses next weekend!!!

Reminders:

• We cannot stress enough the importance of taking the children to the bathroom before they come to class! If one kid wants to go, then the entire class wants to go and since it is a very short class, it would be too much of an interruption. Kindly co-operate with us.
• They do not need their bags in class.