We had a great class with a almost all kids back from vacation etc. Although we missed Abhigna, Pranav and Sahana. Hope to see you soon back into your new years routine.
If felt like FOREVER since we had our class but nevertheless NOONE forgot our routine. As always:
We started our class with " 3 OMs"
We chanted "Vakratunda mahakay....." and asked Ganesha to help remove our obstacles. We are often sleepy, tired, etc etc so we always need Ganesha's help to take away any vighna that can stop us from learning.
We now chanted "Saraswati namastubyam......" asking Saraswati mata to help us learn. Meenaaunty especially needs to call upon her so I am blessed with her knowledge so I can pass it down to the children. Without her knowledge we cant learn and succeed.
Revised from last weeks letter-H is for happiness and I for Intelligence.
We moving on with our alphabet safari chugging to the alphabet J and K today
J is for Japa
Boy did I get all sorts of answers for what J stands for. I got a really good made up word that I wished I remembered. We all switched our regular KG hat and put on the Balvihar hat in order to find the word that we would be using but I admit I didn't expect them to guess this word.
What is Japa?
Japa is repeating God's name with devotion
Why do we do Japa?
It helps us focus and concentrate
Why do we need to concentrate?
So we can learn and succeed
These were the basic questions we circled back and forth in different ways to ensure they understood. Showed them a Japa mala that we use to chant shlokas. We will be making that in class since a lot of students joined after our open house-we made it then.
We played a memory game to emphasize our learning. I divided the group in two teams: Team Rama and Team Krishna. I showed Team Rama a picture of Saraswati Mata for 25 seconds. Asked them to remember what they see till I ask them. Did exact same thing with Team Krishna. Now each team gets to shout out 1 thing they remember from the picture. They actually did very well and saw things I didn't even expect them to notice. Our Team Rama won!!!!!!!
K is for Kindness
What is Kindness? They immediately said being NICE
Why should we be kind? Cause its nice, kind is what they said. I taught them a new concept of karma. What goes around, comes around!!!!!! If we be nice to someone that's a good karma and will come back to us positively. If I be mean to someone, they will always remember that unkind behavior and will not be nice to me BUT if I be nice to someone they will also be nice to me.
I asked a bunch of questions and they were supposed to answer whether that act was of kindness or not. For example: Tony drags his dog with the leash and kicks his dog when it does not run fast enough. They all said that's mean. Gave them 7-9 sentences but they answered most of them correctly.
I had couple of stories to tell to emphasize act of kindess but due to delay from assembly we were running behind so didn't get to stories.
Harish had made kites for Makarsakranti/Pongal he passed out and stringed the string to the kites. Kids were super excited. He also briefly talked about the festival.
I had planned for new shloka today but that's for next class now.
Next class is on February 21st. Next week (Feb 7th school needs the building so we don't have class but have planned a field trip to Swami Narayan Temple in Robbinsville) Shriya's parents have signed up for snacks for the Feb 21st class.
With Prem and Om,
Meena Arvind
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