Hari om parents!!!!
We had a GREAT LAST class of the year 2015!!!!! Children came well prepared, ready to learn and lots of enthusiasm.
As always we started our class with:
3 Om's
Ganesha Shloka---"Vakratunda mahakaya...."
Saraswati Shloka----"Saraswati namastubyam..."
We brainstormed about what we talked about last class. We started with G is for God but couldn't finish it as they said because they were not focused. Continued asking questions what can God do? What does he give us? Where is God?
God can make impossible things possible. Like how a brown cow can eat green grass yet we get white milk. It is a miracle by God. God gives me many gifts some we don't even account for, for eg. Air, eyes to see, nose to smell, ears to hear, etc etc. God also gives us many other gifts. We discussed some of the things that we are really thankful for. Home, clothes, toys, family, and food. We did a project where we glued God's gift in the center of the page and glued all gifts we thought we think are gifts and we need to be thankful for that. Please check your children's folder to see their work.
We all agreed that God gives us many gifts and we need to thank Him for that. How do we thank God? We thank Him by saying Shlokas and doing prayers. How do we perform prayers? We discussed that in detail on how to bathe God and how to dress God. And how we do aarti on special days and shloka everyday. Taught them the ingredients that goes into making God's soap so we can bathe Him. Panchamrat----Milk, Yogurt, honey, sugar and ghee!
Steps:
Take God's clothes off (by removing flowers, actual clothes etc.)
Pour water on
Put panchamrat on
Rinse
Put kum-kum/sandlewood, and flowers
Pop quiz time----Give me the 5 ingredients that goes in the panchamrat? Taalin earned the "Rock star sticker" as he answered the question correctly...:-)
Next week yet again they will get a chance to earn Rock star sticker but this time I am giving them ALL a chance to do so. I told them whoever recites ALL 3 shlokas learned so far correctly will earn the ROCK star sticker next class.
Sloka #1
"Asota ma sadgamaya
Tamaso ma jyotir gamaya
Mrytyor ma amrutam gamaya"
Shloka#2
"Shri Ram ram rameti
rame rame manorame
sahastranama tattulyam
rama nama varanane"
Shloka #3
"Ekdantam Mahakayam
Lambodaragajananam
Vignanashakaram devam
Herambam pranamamya-aham"
Have a GREAT holiday break!!!! No classes for the next two Sundays.
Next class is on January 10th. Arjun's family is signed up for snacks for that class.
See you in 2016!!!!! Be blessed!
Meena Arvind
Sunday, December 20, 2015
Monday, December 14, 2015
December 13th 2015----Class 10!!!!
Hari om parents!!!!
We had a very warm day to begin with. ALL kids complained about being warm (did I mention myself too?) so we opened few windows to cool things down.
So as I have been reaching out to few of you parents if your child happens to be a shy one or the one with special need to bring them early so I can work with them to open up a bit (if they are shy) and I can understand your child (if they have special need/s). Thank you for working with me as a team and we have made some progress with some children but that's NOT where it stops. So lets continue to do so, so they get acclimated to the teacher/s, balvihar (if they are new to balvihar), etc.
So to enhance the same concept, today we asked our special friend to do 3 Oms. We also gave an option to do the 3 oms, or say pass and the next friend can take the lead. Our friend didn't do the 3 Oms, so I gave another option to touch my finger, 1 being I will do the 3 Oms, 2 being I pass. Finally it was PASSED. So I passed it to another friend who also chose not to do the 3 Oms. I passed it to another friend (Arjun Ambat) who is also very quiet in the class and he turned out to be the ROCK"STAR" and lead us to do the 3 Oms. I gave him a STAR sticker to be the brave and lead the 3 Oms.
Yes, we did spend a lot of time doing this "exercise" but its worth every effort to make our children comfortable while learning in any environment.
We did Ganesha shloka, "Vakratunda mahakay....",
Saraswati shloka "Saraswati Namastubyam..."
By this time kids were still complaining about being warm (it really was not, anymore), wanted to go the bathroom, eat snack etc etc. They were just distracted today. So we talked about how we focus in school, we must do the same here in balvihar. Gave some examples where we follow the rules like we don't talk loud in library, why? They said the librarian would ask me to leave. I said why? Cause that's the library rule, you cant talk loud.
So we decided to do that BUT we brainstormed the G is for God and that's all we were able to accomplish. I held off the craft and the coloring cause I am a big believer that craft is to enhance the learning and didn't want it to be just an activity.
So we learned Ganesha Shloka:
"Ekdantam Mahakayam
Lambodaragajananam
Vignanashakaram devam
Herambam pranamamya-aham"
1st shloka: "Asota ma sadgamaya..."
2nd shloka: "Shri rama rameti...."
This is our 3rd Shloka for the year, so please practice with your children so we can keep moving forward with other planned shlokas for the year.
We plan to go over some important stuff next week so please don't miss it unless you are going to India or have travel plans.
Our next class is on December 20th and Anurag has signed up for snacks for the class. See you all then!!!!
Meena Arvind
We had a very warm day to begin with. ALL kids complained about being warm (did I mention myself too?) so we opened few windows to cool things down.
So as I have been reaching out to few of you parents if your child happens to be a shy one or the one with special need to bring them early so I can work with them to open up a bit (if they are shy) and I can understand your child (if they have special need/s). Thank you for working with me as a team and we have made some progress with some children but that's NOT where it stops. So lets continue to do so, so they get acclimated to the teacher/s, balvihar (if they are new to balvihar), etc.
So to enhance the same concept, today we asked our special friend to do 3 Oms. We also gave an option to do the 3 oms, or say pass and the next friend can take the lead. Our friend didn't do the 3 Oms, so I gave another option to touch my finger, 1 being I will do the 3 Oms, 2 being I pass. Finally it was PASSED. So I passed it to another friend who also chose not to do the 3 Oms. I passed it to another friend (Arjun Ambat) who is also very quiet in the class and he turned out to be the ROCK"STAR" and lead us to do the 3 Oms. I gave him a STAR sticker to be the brave and lead the 3 Oms.
Yes, we did spend a lot of time doing this "exercise" but its worth every effort to make our children comfortable while learning in any environment.
We did Ganesha shloka, "Vakratunda mahakay....",
Saraswati shloka "Saraswati Namastubyam..."
By this time kids were still complaining about being warm (it really was not, anymore), wanted to go the bathroom, eat snack etc etc. They were just distracted today. So we talked about how we focus in school, we must do the same here in balvihar. Gave some examples where we follow the rules like we don't talk loud in library, why? They said the librarian would ask me to leave. I said why? Cause that's the library rule, you cant talk loud.
So we decided to do that BUT we brainstormed the G is for God and that's all we were able to accomplish. I held off the craft and the coloring cause I am a big believer that craft is to enhance the learning and didn't want it to be just an activity.
So we learned Ganesha Shloka:
"Ekdantam Mahakayam
Lambodaragajananam
Vignanashakaram devam
Herambam pranamamya-aham"
1st shloka: "Asota ma sadgamaya..."
2nd shloka: "Shri rama rameti...."
This is our 3rd Shloka for the year, so please practice with your children so we can keep moving forward with other planned shlokas for the year.
We plan to go over some important stuff next week so please don't miss it unless you are going to India or have travel plans.
Our next class is on December 20th and Anurag has signed up for snacks for the class. See you all then!!!!
Meena Arvind
Sunday, December 6, 2015
December 6th, 2015---Class 9!!!!
Hari Om parents!!!
We had the "smallest" class today, with 9 children. But they were very enthusiastic about being at BalVihar despite of some having cough, etc.
As always,
we started our class with
* 3 Oms
* "Vakratunda mahakaya....."
* "Saraswati Namastubyam...."
We revised our learned shloka so far:
* "Asato maa...."
* "Ram ram rameti....."
We quickly revised our alphabets:
A is for Aspiration
B is for Brotherhood
C is for Cleanliness
D is for Daddy
E is for Enthusiasm:
What is enthusiasm?
Lots of answers----being happy was the most common one!!!
Enthusiasm is to experience joy and excitement while striving for a goal
How do we cultivate enthusiasm?
By loving everything we do
What are the times do you feel enthusiasm??
When you get invited to a birthday party? When you come to Balvihar? Having a playdate?
They all answered they are super excited and enthusiastic about all of the above questions.
Did an exercise to show them how to tell if someone is being enthusiastic.
Had Aakash and Arjun line up in two separate rows. I asked Aakash to run as fast as he can and back. Asked Arjun to walk as slow as he can. On my count 1,2 and 3 off they go. Aakash ran as fast he could and Arjun was trying to walk but he couldn't because he didn't want to walk. He wanted to run with his friend and see he goes fastest. So he wasn't enjoying the walk. Was Arjun enthusiastic??? NO!!!!
Had Navyashri gallop and Anushri twirl in separate rows. Navyashri took off galloping while Anushri was nice and slow and a little nervous. Why? It was both fun activities then why was Anushri nervous? While twirling she was nervous so that she don't bump into the chairs hence she wasn't enthusiastic about twirling.
They all shared the activities and things that they are enthusiastic about and love to do. I talked about the push and the pull. How things we love will pull us and give us the joy and things we don't love so much will have the push feeling and we push it out if we can.
F is for Friendship:
What is friendship?
They said someone you have a playdate with, someone you play soccer with, etc etc
Friendship is a mutual feeling of love and respect.
Explained to them how one of those ingredient cant be missing in friendship. You can love someone but if you don't respect them, you are not being a good friend. You love a friend, ask them to come over for a playdate but don't share a toy with them, instead you fight with them and hurt them, respect is missing here and that is not being a good friend.
Asked them if friendship has to be among people with same age, they looked at me confused. So without adding much confusion I asked I am not your age but am I your friend? They all said yes and agreed that we don't someone of our age to be our friend.
Further asked them if that friend needs to be a human? They glared at me with little more confusion. I asked if someone has a pet like cat, dog, hamster but yet they call them their best friend, so friends don't need to be humans.
We all took bathroom break at this point, came back had gold fish for snack.
We watched a video of Krishna and Sudama to reinforce the learning of Friendship and how friends help each other. Here is the link to the video if your children missed the class https://youtu.be/1iX0xeiyJxA
Next class is on December 13th and Navraysri's family has signed up for snacks for the next class. NO JUICE, please!!!!
Have an awesome week,
Meena Arvind
We had the "smallest" class today, with 9 children. But they were very enthusiastic about being at BalVihar despite of some having cough, etc.
As always,
we started our class with
* 3 Oms
* "Vakratunda mahakaya....."
* "Saraswati Namastubyam...."
We revised our learned shloka so far:
* "Asato maa...."
* "Ram ram rameti....."
We quickly revised our alphabets:
A is for Aspiration
B is for Brotherhood
C is for Cleanliness
D is for Daddy
E is for Enthusiasm:
What is enthusiasm?
Lots of answers----being happy was the most common one!!!
Enthusiasm is to experience joy and excitement while striving for a goal
How do we cultivate enthusiasm?
By loving everything we do
What are the times do you feel enthusiasm??
When you get invited to a birthday party? When you come to Balvihar? Having a playdate?
They all answered they are super excited and enthusiastic about all of the above questions.
Did an exercise to show them how to tell if someone is being enthusiastic.
Had Aakash and Arjun line up in two separate rows. I asked Aakash to run as fast as he can and back. Asked Arjun to walk as slow as he can. On my count 1,2 and 3 off they go. Aakash ran as fast he could and Arjun was trying to walk but he couldn't because he didn't want to walk. He wanted to run with his friend and see he goes fastest. So he wasn't enjoying the walk. Was Arjun enthusiastic??? NO!!!!
Had Navyashri gallop and Anushri twirl in separate rows. Navyashri took off galloping while Anushri was nice and slow and a little nervous. Why? It was both fun activities then why was Anushri nervous? While twirling she was nervous so that she don't bump into the chairs hence she wasn't enthusiastic about twirling.
They all shared the activities and things that they are enthusiastic about and love to do. I talked about the push and the pull. How things we love will pull us and give us the joy and things we don't love so much will have the push feeling and we push it out if we can.
F is for Friendship:
What is friendship?
They said someone you have a playdate with, someone you play soccer with, etc etc
Friendship is a mutual feeling of love and respect.
Explained to them how one of those ingredient cant be missing in friendship. You can love someone but if you don't respect them, you are not being a good friend. You love a friend, ask them to come over for a playdate but don't share a toy with them, instead you fight with them and hurt them, respect is missing here and that is not being a good friend.
Asked them if friendship has to be among people with same age, they looked at me confused. So without adding much confusion I asked I am not your age but am I your friend? They all said yes and agreed that we don't someone of our age to be our friend.
Further asked them if that friend needs to be a human? They glared at me with little more confusion. I asked if someone has a pet like cat, dog, hamster but yet they call them their best friend, so friends don't need to be humans.
We all took bathroom break at this point, came back had gold fish for snack.
We watched a video of Krishna and Sudama to reinforce the learning of Friendship and how friends help each other. Here is the link to the video if your children missed the class https://youtu.be/1iX0xeiyJxA
Next class is on December 13th and Navraysri's family has signed up for snacks for the next class. NO JUICE, please!!!!
Have an awesome week,
Meena Arvind
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