Hari OM Parents,
I hope all of you have been able to either order the Ramayana book by Shri C. Rajagopachari from Amazon or have downloaded the PDF copy that was provided in the last email. This is key for the effective participation of the kids in the class that they have this book and if possible pre-read the topics we plan to cover. Happy to note that everyone was able to join the Zoom session without any difficulty however some of them had some challenges to keep the Video on during the session. Keeping the video on during the session is a must and helps with active participation and interaction as well. Please ensure that they have the laptop that is capable of video sharing.
we started the class with Likhitha Japa. This gave time for students to join and settle down. We hope to do this every class and thus request you to ensure that everyone has the likhitha japa notebook and a pencil as the come into the session. We followed this with our regular starting prayers and practiced two of Sri Rama dhyana shlokas (page 129 of the my prayers book) as well. This was followed by a recap of what was covered in the last class.
The focus of this session was part 1 of Balakhanda. We narrated the story starting from King Dasharatha kigdom and him performing Putrakamesti yagna followed by birth of Shree Rama and his early days of growing up at Ayodhya. This was followed up Sage Vishwamitra's request to take them to the forest where Shree Rama along with Lakshmana helps kill the deamons (Tataka) and help the sages complete their yagna's peacefully. We stopped this session with Sage vishamitra sharing his plan to take them to Mithila. Along the story narration we also discussed some of the key characters and thus triggering some character analysis as well.
We had a small spin wheel game to help youths recollect the topics that have been discussed in the last class and this one. Youths enjoyed the session and participated well. We followed this up with a Sanskrit pronunciation primer which would help them chant and appreciate the upcoming Geetha Chanting session.
Thus we covered chapters 1 – 5 of the book. We plan to do chapters 6 – 11 in the next session and close out on balakhanda.
We finished the class with Aarathi and pledge followed by closing prayers. We also assigned two Chinmaya quotes for kids to ponder upon and will discuss those in the next class. Please take a moment to chat with your kid and discuss some of the above points and may be even the Chinmaya quotes. Your interaction at home will help accelerate their learning process.
Overall a wonderful start of the session and let us know if you have any feedback on the sessions this far. We would shortly like to have a zoom session with the parents as well and will let you know the schedule for the same. Please don't hesitate to email us with any questions you may have.
Thanks and Hari Om
Purnima Krishnamurthy
Venkatapathy Shankar
