We had a small feedback session with the kids where they shared with us something that they liked about the class and something that they would like to see improve.
The class began with opening prayers. Since Hanuman Jayanthi is approaching, the kids chanted Hanuman Chalisa is the class. We then covered the chapter on Food and Gunas, clothing in India.
We practised for the upcoming play for 6th grade.
We ended class with closing prayers.
We began the class with opening prayers. We went further into our book of India the Sacred Land and discussed information on the spices of India, and Ayurveda. Kids watched a video about Dhanvantri, considered the father of Ayurveda.
We also began practice of the play during the class with all the kids providing input on the ways to improve a zoom play.
We then moved to the main assembly where the 9th graders performed today.
Today's class began with opening prayers and Guru stotram. We learn the first 5 shlokas of Mahishasura Mardhini shloka.
We then continued with the chapter on games of Indian origin from the book, "India the Sacred Land." We focussed on the game of Mokshapat and reviewed the vices and virtues that have been used to make the game both fun as well as educational.
We also discussed on practice for the upcoming class play.
The next class will be next week Sunday.
Pranaam,
Prarthana and Latha
The kids then joined the main assembly where they saw the 4th grade performance.
We began the class with Guru stotram and Gita chanting
In this class we recapped the story of the life of Mahatma Gandhi and shared the story of Rabindranath Tagore. We also spoke about the national emblems of India and their significance. We quizzed the kids about American emblems as well. Kids listened to the Indian national anthem.
We then had a discussion on the play that the kids will be presenting in June. Our class will be presenting a play on zoom in early June. The plan is to have it pre recorded and we may need a few Saturdays of practice time with the kids. We hope to have the kids wear costumes and have as many interesting zoom backgrounds as possible. We hope to make this a fun filled event for them.
We began the class with opening prayers and Guru stotram followed by Gita chanting.
We recapped the previous class and began with the freedom struggle of India primarily with a focus on the life and achievements of Mahatma Gandhi. We shared slides of his life in pictures and saw a short video of his life changing experience on the train in South Africa. We then went on to main assembly where the 5th grade kids performed their play.
Today's class marked the conclusion of the Mahabharata story. The part of the story we covered were:
Yudhishtira is coronated the King of Hastinapura after much persuasion by Vyasa and others to stop feeling guilty and sorrowful and to take on his duty as ruler. To help him with this Krishna advises him to learn from Bhishma who is still on the bed of arrows. As they visit Bhishma, Krishna grants Bhishma the boon to not feel pain until his death and with a clearer mind, he imparts his knowledge to Yudhishtira about the duties and characteristics of a ruler. At the end of this and the beginning of Uttarayana, Bhishma discards his body and returns to heaven. Ganga mourns the death of her son and Krishna comforts her.
Yudhishtira rules righteously for many years. After a few years Dhritarashtra, Gandhari and Kunti along with Vidura proceed to the forest and their life ends in a forest fire. The Pandavas are distraught at the death of their mother.
In Mathura, the unrighteous behavior of the Yadavas comes to a head. Krishna sees bad omens. The time for Gandhari's curse to come true arrives. Along with that, the Yadavas had previously incurred another curse when they played a mean joke on some of the Rishis by asking them if a boy dressed in a pregnant woman's garb was going to have a boy or a girl. The Rishis curse them that he would give birth to an iron rod that would be the cause of the death of all the Yadavas. Upon hearing this an upset Balarama has them powder it and put it in the ocean. However, over the years the iron had been washed to the shore and had formed blades of grass. When the Yadavas make camp is a place called Prabhasa, they get drunk and a fight breaks out in which many of the Maharathis of the war are killed. Krishna is disgusted and throws the grass at them that kills them all. He rushes to tell Balarama this who then gives up his life in meditation. A serpent emerges from his mouth and swims into the ocean. It is believed that Balarama was the incarnation of Adi Shesha.
Krishna too wonders how he should discard his mortal body. As he is resting in the forest, a hunter who has an arrow made of the same blade of grass thinks of his foot as a deer and shoots Krishna through the foot. Krishna blesses the hunter who tries to help him and grants him Moksha before he gives up his Avatar and ascends to the heavens.
A devasted Arjuna is in charge of taking all the women and children of Dwaraka to Hastinapura. On the way, they are attacked by robbers for wealth and women. Arjuna has great difficulty in stringing the Gandhiva and is unable to shoot arrows to protect them and the wealth and many women are carried away. When he brings the remaining people to Hastinapura, he relates the whole incident to the Pandavas. He also tells him that he dreamt that Krishna told him to join him soon. The Pandavas decide that it is time for their 'Mahaprasthana' an undertaking where people walked into the Himalayas without food and water till their bodies gave up.
Parikshit is made King. The Pandavas and Draupadi start for the Himalayas. A dog begins to follow them. As they ascend the Himalayas, Draupadi is the first to fall dead. Bhima asks Yudhishita what sin she had committed to fall dead. He states that she had always loved Arjuna more. Sahadeva falls next. Yudhishtira says that he was vain about his knowledge. Nakula falls thirsd. He was vain about his appearance. Arjuna falls and Yudhistira states that it is because he had boasted that he could single handedly kill all his enemies but did not in the end. Bhima falls beacuse he was boastful of his strength and ate too much. Finally at the top of Meru mountain, Indra comes to greet Yudhishtira in his chariot and asks him to come with him to heaven. Yudhishtira refuses to leave the poor dog behind and refuses heaven in order to protect it. The dog then turns into Yama himself and he blesses Yudhishtira and takes him to heaven. In heaven, he is shocked to see Duryodhana on a throne enjoying himself and his brothers are nowhere to be seen. He finds them in hell and in pain and refuses the pleasures of heaven and chooses to be with them instead. Once again Indra tells Yudhishtira that he was being tested and he had to spend that short time in hell for the lie he told about Drona.
Yudhishtira enters Indra's palace and finds Krishna, all his brothers, Draupadi and Dhrishtadhymna, Karna there standing by their celestial fathers. The Pandavas merged with their respective celestial fathers.
We ended the day with a debate on the pros and cons of 5 characters with one kid supporting and another opposing the actions of the characters. They were Yudhistira, Gandhari, Krishna, Karna and Bhishma.
We ended class with the pledge.
This Sunday, we had a short class. We began with Gurustotram. We then had a Kahoot game on the Mahabharata. This was followed by a quick recap of the previous class. Then we had the next part of the Mahabharata story.
Ashwattama, Kritavarma, Kripacharya are deeply saddened by the plight of the dying Duryodhana and Ashwattam vows revenge upon the Pandavas for all the unfair things that they did during the war. They reach the Pandava camp in the middle of the night and Kritavarma and Kripacharya stand guard at the door while Ashwattama wrecks havoc inside. He finds the sleeping Dhrishtadhyumna and strangles and beats him. Dhrishtadhymna begs him to kill him with an arrow so he could die like a Kshatriya but Ashwattama refuses and says that he does not deserve it for the way that he killed Drona. He also kills the Upapandavas in their sleep.
After destroying the Pandava camp and setting it on fire, the three return to Duryodhana and tell him what they had done. He then dies knowing that he had had some revenge. Ashwattama and the others disperse knowing that the Pandavas will soon come looking for Ashwattama. Soon, the bad news reaches the Pandavas. Draupadi is heart broken and seeks revenge against AShwattama. Bhima sets off to find him and is followed by Krishna and Arjuna. Ashwattama releases the Bhrahmasi astra and so does Arjuna but they are stopped by Veda Vyasa and Narada who tell them that it would cause the destruction of the entire planet and they should withdraw it. Arjuna does so but Ashwattama does not know how to and redirects it at the womb of Uttara Kumari who is to bear the child of Abhimanyu. Krishna is very angry with this. He saves the baby. Ashwattama has to surrender the gem on his forehead and loses its protective powers. Krishna curses him to live alone in pain and suffering forever.
Dhritarashtra and Gandhari meet the Pandavas. Dhritarashtra is overcome with grief and crushed the iron statue of Bhima thinking that it is Bhima before being overcome with grief. It is then that he realises that Bhima is still alive. Although Gandhari is very angry and sad, the humility of the Pandavas helps her calm down and she reconciles with them. She curses Krishna that in 36 years his entire Yadava clan will kill itself and die. Krishna is not sad to hear this as he knows that it is coming. He also explains Gandahri's mistakes in raising her sons to her and states that she too is to blame for her plight.
Everyone is offering the last rites to the dead at the banks of the River Ganga and Kunti finally steps forward and tells Yudhishtira to do the last rites of Karna as well. The Pandavas are perplexed but then shocked when she reveals that he was her first born son. Yudhishtira is very angry with her and curses all of woman kind to never be able to keep a secret.
We then listened to Swamijis chanting of chapter 2, shlokas 17,18.
The kids then entered the zoom session for the 7th grade program.
We began with Gurustotram
We played a kahoot game about the history of the Pandavas
We recapped the previous class which was the end of Drona and death of Karna.
We proceeded with the story of the last day of the war. Duryodhana makes King Shalya the commander in chief. Shalya fights valiantly. The armies on both sides have now been reduced to a much smaller number. Yudhishtira fights with Shalya and kills him. Duryodhana is heart broken and also wounded and runs away to a lake in the Kurukshetra. He wants to take some rest and enters the lake. Before he does so, he speaks with Ashwattama, Kripacharya and Kritavarma. Hunters who have come to the lake to drink water see Duryodhana entering the lake and report this to the Pandavas. They arrive there and challenge him to come out of the water and fight. A terrible fight with maces results between Duryodhana and Bhima. Both are tired and repeatedly faint but Krishna can see that Duryodhana is clearly better than the two. In a loud conversation with Arjuna, he talks about the oath Bhima took and Arjuna pats his thigh. Bhima sees this and when Duryodhana jumps up to strike, he crushes his thigh with his mace and Duryodhana falls to the ground in pain.
Balarama who had come to witness this final battle of his favorite student is enraged at the injustice and rushes to attack Bhima but is stopped by Krishna who reminds him of all the wrong that Duryodhana had done. An arguement ensues with Duryodhana accusing the Pandavas of cheating and Krishna making him see that he was the one who brought this on himself and caused the death and destruction of so many friends and family. The Pandavas proceed to the Kaurava army camp to spend the night there. When they get there, Krishna asks Arjuna to first alight from the chariot after which Hanuman flies away from the flag on the chariot. When Krishna gets down, the whole chariot and the horse are consumed by fire. Arjuna is shocked. Krishna tells him that the chariot had been destroyed by the arrows of Karna and that it was Krishna's own presence that had kept it together.
We saw a video about the significance of Shankranti. We covered shlokas 15 and 16 of Gita chanting.
We ended with aarti and pledge.
Today was the last class of the calender year 2020.
We began the class with Gurustotram and completed the first 10 verses by the kids.
We started with a Kahoot game that covered questioned based on class content.
We moved forward with the story of the war on the 15th day
Drona was fighting very fiercely, breaking many rules of fair warfare stung by the harsh words of Duryodhana. The Pandavas were having a difficult time withstanding his prowess. That is when plans to trick him to give up his weapons are made. Bhima kills an elephant called Ashwattama and declares to Drona that his son is dead and he should lay down his weapons. Drona continues to fight for sometime and finally asks Yudhishtra for the truth. At that point in order to save many innocent soldiers from Drona's menace, Yudhishtra lies and says that Ashwattama is dead but he then softly says that Ashwattama is the elephant that Drona does not realise. Drona drops his weapons, sits in his chariot and begins to meditate with the purpose of giving up his life. Dhrishtadhyumna who is born to kill Drona seizes the moment. Sword in hand, he jumps into Drona's chariot and despite Arjuna's pleading, cuts off Drona's head. That night when Ashwattama realises the way his father was killed, he is in a rage and attacks the Panadava army at night, fighting fiercely and releasing the Narayanastra. Ghatotkacha fights back and wounds the Kaurava army and Karna is forced to use the Shakti Astra against him and kill him. Karna knows that he cannot defeat Arjuna as he no longer had the Shakti Astra with him.
With Drona dead, Karna becomes the commander in chief of the Kaurava army on day 16 of the war. He ravages the Pandava army and defeats each of his younger brothers except Arjuna in one on one duels but spares all their lives. On day 17, Bhima kills many more of Duryodhana's brothers inclusing Dussasana. He rips open his chest and drinks his blood thus fulfilling his oath. Both Karna and Arjuna fight each other in a fanatastic duel. All of the curses Karna recieved come true, he forgets the incantations for his divine Astras and his wheel gets stuck in the ground. He releases the Nagastra aimed for Arjuna's head but Krishna pulls the reins of the horses and sinks the chariot a few feet into the ground. The Astra misses Arjuna's head and hits his crown. Finally Karna is on the ground trying to release his wheel from the ground and asks Arjuna to wait and fight fairly. Krishna tells Arjuna that Karna had never fought fairly in killing Abhimanyu or humiliating Draupadi. Arjuna shoots and kills Karna.
We then completed the class with the kids sharing their happiest memories of 2020. We chanted Gita shlokas 13,14. Kids read the pledge.
We began the class with opening prayers and covered Guru Stotram shlokas 6-10. Most kids were able to repeat the shlokas quite well. We then covered Bhagavad Gita Chapter 2 shlokas 11,12.
We continued with the story of Mahabharate starting with Drona Parva.
Drona takes on the mantle of commander in chief after Bhishma is wounded and is laying on the bed of arrows.
He promises Duryodhana that he will capture Yudhishtira alive and this greatly angers the Pandavas.
The Trigarta army challenges Arjuna relentlessly and pull him away from the main war day after day. On the third day of Drona's command, exasperated by the taunts of Duryodhana for not capturing Yudhishtira, he promises that at least one Maharathi on the Pandava side will die. He creates the Chakravuyha formation and fights fiercely and the Pandava forces are under severe pressure. Since Arjuna is fighting the Trigarthas, Abhimanyu takes on the role of breaking into the Vyuha but tells his uncles that he doesnt know how to get out. They promise him that as soon as he makes an opening in the vyuha, they will follow him and break the formation. As he enters the Chakrayvyuha, Jayadhrata begins to fight the Pandavas. He is unbeatable due to a boon from Lord Sankara that he would beat the Pandavas for one day. He prevents them from following Abhimanyu and the Vyuha closes. Abhimanyu fights valiantly and finally six Maharathis on the Kaurava side get together and kill him with deceit. Arjuna is heart broken and takes an oath that he will kill Jayadhratha by the following night or jump into a fire himself. Krishna is worried about this oath. In Arjuna's sleep, he dreams of going to see Lord Shiva with Krishna and is given the boon of Pashupatastra and shown how to use it.
The next day, Arjuna breaks through the Kaurava army and reaches Jayadhratha. Satyaki and Bhima follow him also destroying a large portion of the Kaurava army as well. As the sun begins to set, Krishna invokes his Sudarshana Chakra and covers the sun momentarily. The Kauravas lose their focus assuming that the Sun has set. As they break ranks, Krishna uncovers the Sun and asks Arjuna to use the Pashupatastra and cut off Jayadhrata's head. As he does so, he also directs him to make sure that the head lands of the lap of Jayadhrata's father who is meditating by a river. When Vridhakshatra stands up, his son's head falls to the ground and his head explodes into a thousand pieces. This is because of a boon given to Jayadhratha by his father.
This Sunday, we began the class with opening prayers and the first 5 shlokas of Guru stotram.
We recapped the story of the Mahabharata from the last class and continued with the story as follows:
The two armies are ready for war on the battlefield. Yudhishtra seeks Bhishma's blessings.
Arjuna collapses when he realises that he has to fight his own kith and kin and Lord Krishna delivers the teaching that we now know as the Bhagwad Gita and shows him the Vishwarupa.
Arjuna readies himself to fight and the war begins with Bhishma wreaking havoc through the Pandava ranks. After nine days of valiant fighting, wins and losses, Yudhishtra approaches Bhishma for help as to how to defeat him. Bhishma tells him to put Shikhandi in front of Arjuna and that he will not shoot at Shikhandi.
At this point a couple of children were able to give a detailed account of the history and life of Shikhandi. We ended with the defeat of Bhishma and him laying on a bed of arrows.
The kids also watched a video clip of the fall of Bhishma. We had a small quiz about the life of Bhishma.
We completed the chanting of shlokas 9,10. See below.
Activity for the last day of class in 2020. Since Dec 20 will be the last class of 2020, I would like to request the parents to send me one pic of your child from 2020 that he or she thinks was the happiest moment of this year. I will try and put together a slide show/ collage for the kids to spend some time on and talk about the good that happened in this rather difficult year.
Please send it to me as a private message on whatsapp (Prarthana - 704-488-8029) or you can email it to sunamgr6@chinmayavrindavan.org. Please send it before Dec 15.
Thank you,
Prarthana and Jyothy
Summary of the class today.
1. Opening prayers followed by Guru stotram
2. We recapped the last class story of Mahabharata.
3.We continued with the story of Kunti revealing herself to Karna asking him to join his brothers, the Pandavas and Kauravas arriving at the battlefield and laying down the rules of the battle and Bhishma and Dhrishtadhymna being named commanders in chiefs.
Today's discussion with the kids was a little contemplation on the life of Karna. The question posed to them was, what do you do when life is unfair and how do you react. The kids made it a wonderful discussion sharing their thoughts and came up with their own solutions for Karna to deal with unfair situations.
We also did Gita chapter 2, sholkas 7,8
Today's Balvihar class began with opening prayers followed by the learning of the 6th shloka of Gurustortram.
We then continued with Mahabharata narration.
We began with Sanjaya returning to Hastinapura after speaking to the Pandavas. He lets Dhritarashtra know that the Pandavas as willing to forgo war in exchange for 5 villages. Duryodhana is angry and puts his foot down that he will never give them anything despite the pleas of Bheeshma, Drona and Vidura. Dhritarashtra consults Sanjaya about his own lack of peace of mind and inability to sleep. Sanjaya tells him about the differences between the minds of someone following and someone not following Dharma. Krishna comes to Hastinapura with the hope of making Duryodhana see reason. He stays in Vidura's house. When he meets with everyone in the Hastinapura court and reasons with them, all the elders including Dhritarashtra beg Duryodhana to heed advise and give the Pandavas the five villages. Duryodhana refuses saying that he will not give them land the size of a point of a needle and is so angry that he decides to imprison Krishna himself. At that point Krishna reveals his Vishwaroopa.
At this point we had a discussion with the kids about the influence of friends and family on Duryodhana's character. The kids offered several different perspectives on this.
We had an activity - quiz, fill in the blanks, true or falsse etc based on the previous 2 classes.
This was followed by learning Bhagwad Gita chapter 2 shlokas 5-6.
We ended with the pledge.
This week's class was eventful for the kids. The focus of the class was the House Inauguration. All the 6th graders belong to Durga's Daredevils and were requested to wear red. It was wonderful to see every single child wearing red.
After opening prayers, we recapped the previous class' story of the Mahabharata.
We then continued with Udyog Parva where Sanjaya goes to speak to Yudhishtra with Dhritarashtra's rather sarcastic and aggressive message that the Pandavas should renounce everything and not ask for their Kingdom in the name of preventing war. Yudhishtra is deeply hurt by his Uncle's tactics and sends a message back with Sanjaya that they will be happy with five villages.
At the Hastinpura court, Sanjaya relates Yudhishtra's message that falls on the deaf ears of Duryodhana and Dhritarashtra.
At this point House Volunteer Ms. Rashmi Kuroodi came to the zoom class and had the kids complete 2 activites.
- making a Durga Daredevils flag
-completing a Mahabharata related quiz.
Both these activites won points for our House.
The kids then entered the zoom session for the House Inauguration and watched the High School presentations and the presentation on ways to earn points.
We ended with the Plegde.
Hari Om Parents,
Below is the update from our class grade 6 Sunday AM this week.
11th OCT 2020 / 9:15AM
Shlokas
We began class with regular opening prayers.
Today we chanted 8 slokas of the Guru Stotram following the same pattern of each of the slokas being recited by one child.
Mahabharata- our lesson
We started with Brihannalla's victorious return to the Matsya kingdom along with prince Uttara Kumara. The children also answered all the questions with regard to events leading up to them winning the war against Kauravas and bringing back pieces of cloth from the fallen warriors for his sister's dolls.
We continued with the lesson and covered the following topics-
1.King Virata bragging about his son's courage and valor and taking all the credit for his son winning the war. Yudhishtira states that this was Brihannalla's achievement. Virata throws the dice at Yudhistira, disguised as Kanka.
2. Draupadi does not let the blood from Yudhishtira's nose fall on the ground-collects it in a bowl of water.
3. Pandavas reveal themselves and come to the court in their regal attire. Virata is humbled by their presence and offers his daughter in marriage to Arjuna. Abhimanyu is suggested as a more suitable groom for the princess by Arjuna.
4. Abhimanyu and Uttara's wedding is celebrated with great pomp and all neighboring kings attend. Krishna and Balarama also attend.
5. Duryodhana starts forming his army of allies and friends..has no intention of giving the Pandavas their share of the kingdom.
6. Duryodhana and Arjuna both reach Dwaraka to solicit lord Krishna's help.Arjuna opts for Krishna while Duryodhana foolishly chooses the Narayana Sena.
The stage is being set for the famous Kurukshetra war.
The children are excited about the impending war and the types of strategies that will be used in the war.
Activity
Then we played a story telling game where we started them off with a few characters-Gita and Gopal who live in a village near Hastinapur and their father is a guard at the palace.
The children had great fun using their imagination and adding lines to this story—after a lot of twists and turns they made the Pandavas and Kauravas make a peaceful pact and not go into war.
Festival-Navaratri
We discussed about the upcoming festival of Navaratri and the story behind it. We watched a short video of Durga Devi and the killing of Mahishasura. We also talked about the different ways in which Navartari is celebrated in different parts of India using a slideshow.
Geeta Chanting
We also showed the Geeta chanting video to the children and had them recite the verses along with Swamiji's recording.
We ended class with arti and pledge.
Thank you and hari om.
Latha Kakani
Prarthan Gururaj
| Requirements for class *We start at 9.15 with opening prayers. Please be in the zoom room on or before 9.15.
*Please bring a notebook and a pen or pencil to note down important pointers.
*Please bring your My Prayers book and last year's handbook for Aarti and Pledge
Next class is on 11/1/2020. Please write back or text with questions or queries you may have. Thank you all. Grade 6 teachers Sunday AM Latha Kakani and Vidhya Prarthana Gururaj | |