2. "Vakrathunda Mahakaya" (page 27 in My Prayers book)
3. "Saraswathi Namasthubhyam" (page 12 in My Prayers book)
4. "Karagre Vasate" (page 11 in My Prayers book)
5. "Samudhra Vasane" (page 11 in My Prayers book)
Activities:
Please have the kids make it a habit to chant the above shlokas every morning, after their bath/shower. This will help them learn, memorize as well as develop a lifelong habit of morning prayer and daily prayer.
We rolled right in to some Yoga stretches. We began with the Tree pose with some swaying, then went into a Tiger pose and had everyone roar like a Tiger or a Lion (we had to prompt them to be louder!). Then we sat on the floor and turned into little butterflies, fluttering in the breeze. We then went into the Flower Pose, the kids are slowly getting a hang of this relatively new pose.
Bhajan time - we introduced the class to a new Vishnu bhajan
Hari Hari Hari Hari Narayana
Hari Hari Hari Hari Narayana
Om Narayana
Om Narayana
Hari Hari Hari Hari Narayana
Hari Hari Hari Hari Narayana
Om Narayana
Govinda Narayana Gopala Narayana
Govinda Narayana Gopala Narayana
Hari Hari
Hari Hari Hari Hari Narayana
Om Narayana
Sri Rama Narayana Sri Krishna Narayana
Sri Rama Narayana Sri Krishna Narayana
Hari Hari
Hari Hari Hari Hari Narayana
Om Narayana
Om Narayana
Om Na - Ra - Yana
We played the Concentration Game. After the chanting of 3 Om's kids tried to keep their eyes closed. They counted the number of stones being dropped into a box during the quiet time. Later they give the count of the stones dropped. The game quiets the mind and improves concentration. We muted everyone so that the kids wouldn't have any potential distractions from each other. Several students got the count correct! Impressive how most of the kids are able to keep their eyes closed and concentrate. (We did have some technical difficulties with the audio, but were able to restart and got through our meditation part if our class).
After some meditation and calming down, we repeated numbers 1-10 in Sanskrit. We showed images of the numbers in Sanskrit and in English on the screen as well as a a visual of circles with the corresponding number. We had the kids put up their fingers as we counted together.
Geetha Chanting, we practiced shlokas 1 and 2 from chapter 2 of the Geetha. We repeated the shlokas twice. It was such a wonderful feeling to see a few of the kids chanting the 1st shloka:)yay!!
Story Time.
Craft Time, we made our own fish out of a paper plate. The kids were given the choice of decorating their fish with pieces of colored paper, triangle pieces of cupcake wrappers, pom poms, crayons and/or markers. The kids were happy to share their completed art work. Below are few of our class fish.
Matsya Avathar
The setting of our story began on the banks of the river Kritamala. We discussed that, the then Kritamala river, is the Vaigai river that flows through the southern Temple City of Madurai. A puppet of King Sathyavratha on the banks of the river, watching the sunrise was shown on the screen. The king went to the river every morning, he would scoop up water from the river, hold the water in his cupped hands and chant the Gayathri Manthra, offer the water to the sun and pour the water back into the river. I demonstrated chanting the Gayathri Manthra pretending to hold water in my cupped hands and then pretended to pour the water out. A puppet of cupped hands holding water was shown on the screen. Then the kids were asked to pretend to scoop up some water and hold it in their cupped hands. Then we chanted "Om Namo Narayana" and then pretended to pour the water out of our hands as an offering. We did this together as a class 3 times.
One fine morning as King Sathyavratha was performing his morning rituals in the Kritamala river, a tiny fish ended up in his cupped hands that was holding the water. A puppet of a fish caught in cupped hands of water was shown on the screen. The sort of startled king, was about to pour the water back into the river when he heard a voice pleading not to do so! For a second, the king had no clue where the voice was coming from, but he eventually figured out that it was really from a tiny talking fish that was caught in his hands. The king then asked why he shouldn't put the fish back in the water. The fish responded by saying that there are a lot of big fish in the river and they would eat the tiny fish. King Sathyavratha was a good hearted and righteous ruler and he always protected those who are weak and seek protection. So he agreed to put the fish in a container and took the fish back to his palace with him.
The next morning, the king woke up and was about to leave for his morning rituals and found the fish squished inside the bowl he had put him in. A puppet of a fish outgrown his fish bowl was shown on the screen. The king thought that it was odd as to how fast the fish grew, he didn't necessarily question it but, transferred the fish to a bigger pot. An image of the fish transfer was shown on the screen. We had a small deviation and discussed P.D. Eastman's illustrations for the book by Mrs. Dr. Suess called "A Fish Out Of Water". It had a similar scenario of a rapidly growing fish and how the fish had to be transferred into different things like a pot, to a tub, to a small pond to a large swimming pool, as it kept growing and growing, just like our story.
Eventually, the fish outgrew the pond that he was in and was moved to a lake! At this point, the king was unable to control his curiosity and asked the fish who He "REALLY" was. The fish in turn, asked the king, "Who do you think I really am?" In response to that question, the king said, "Lord Vishnu"! The kids were asked what 4 things Lord Vishnu holds in His hands. They responded by saying, "Chakkara, shell (conch), gadha and the flower (lotus)". A puppet of the Matsya Avathar was shown on the screen. The surprised king was speechless for a moment. Then Lord Vishnu began to tell King Sathyavratha the purpose of His avathar. He went on to instruct the king to gather the "Saptha" (asked the kids if they remember what saptha means - didn't get a response) Rishis and their council, his people, seeds, herbs, animals and all species to keep earth populated. All of them were told to be loaded into a boat prior to the rains. Lord Vishnu promised to protect and save everyone and everything that are on the boat.
The king had to react with immense speed. The rains were due to hit any moment as the skies began to darken and clouds started rolling in. It immediately began to pour. There were floods everywhere. Lord Vishnu instructed to tie Vasuki, the serpent to the boat and then the other end of her to Matsya avathar's horn. A puppet of the flood (moving the puppet like the waves and floods in the image) and boat filled with everyone tied with Vasuki to Matsya avathar's horn was shown on the screen. As promised, Lord Vishnu protected everyone and everything on the boat. This was Lord Vishnu's first avathar. We all chanted "Om Namo Narayana" three times to end the story.
We concluded class with Om Purnamadha (page 15 in My Prayers book)
Pranaam,
Keerthi and Pramila
