Dear Parents,
Welcome to week 1 of Balvihar. It was very nice to see all the kids, they were all happy to be with us and excited about learning.
We started with interacting with kids about their summer.
Then talked to parents about how the class is structured.
Once all the kids were in, we started with prayers.
Shlokas:
"Om Saha navavatu" (page 8 in My Prayers book)
"Vakratunda mahakaya" (page 27 in My Prayers book) .
Every week we will repeat the Shlokas we did last week and introduce one new Shloka. Please practice the Shlokas everyday at home.
Story:
This year we will be teaching kids Bala Ramayana and learn to imbibe qualities like Rama.
We started our story at Ayodhya. We opened the map of India and located Ayodhya. We learnt about the four directions on the map. We described the city of Ayodhya located on the banks of river Sarayu. As we said city , the kids thought of New York City. And we had a small discussion about how things were different in Ayodhya. There were no cars or tall buildings, and black tar roads. No bright lights. Instead Ayodhya had mud roads , lots of trees and flowers. The city was very clean. People light lamps at night.
Their king was king Dashartha. He was a virtuous and truthful king. He was a wise ruler and knew how to rule the land. Ayodhya means "No Fight". It was truly the city with no one fighting. Everyone lived in peace and harmony.
But the king was sad.That was a problem. We said he was sad because he had no kids. He would like to have kids, so they can help him rule the land.
We asked a question , what do we do when we have a problem, and kids replied that we go to a person who can solve the problem. That was the answer we were looking for,and that's what king Dasharatha did.
He went to the sage and his guru, Sage Vasishtha. Sage Vasistha said that they will do a Yagya and it will help the king. We discussed with kids what is a Yagya and what is a sage.
We finished chapter 1 and will continue the story next week on chapter 2 and 3.
Geeta Chanting:
We did chanting primer as a part of Geeta Chanting. We play a Geeta Chanting video that kids listen to and follow along.
Activities:
We did marble mediation. We closed our eyes , then chanted Om three times and kids counted the marbles as I dropped it in a container. Total of 10 marbles were dropped. Then kids opened their eyes and we guessed the number of marbles. Few said 8 few said 9 and few said 10. Then we counted the marbles together.
We did tree pose as part of our movement snack. We made ourselves into a tree and swayed with the wind. Kids were very excited to show me how they can even balance on one leg.
We started to learn our Bhajan - Khate bhi Ram kaho(My Prayers Book ,Page:144-145 ). We did the first three lines of it.
We ended with Aarti and Pledge. We played the recording to Aarti and we all sang with it. Annahita led the pledge for us. If kids can, we will be led by different kids for our Pledge every week.
Pls check the link below to see pics taken during the class:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/9UdwTrFcBKAYqGEg8
Weekly updates:
Zoom Link:
https://us04web.zoom.us/j/75507967979?pwd=Mk8vK0NxQmpkY29VZm1ORDVkVWorQT09
See you all next Sunday. Class starts promptly at 9:15 A.M. We will start Aarti and Pledge at 10:40.
Regards,
Dipti Chauhan and Nancy Thakkar
