Beginning prayers
· saha naavavatu
· akhaNDamaNDalaakaaram
· aj~naanatimiraandhasya
· gururbrahmaa
· tvameva maataa cha
sthaavaraM ja~ngamaM vyaaptam
Gitaa chanting
· bhagavadgItaa 12th adhyaaya 1 and 2 shloka
Story time
· naarada
· parIkShit meets kali (intro.)
Chanting/Songs
· raama hare (pallavi)
Quiet time
· Writing ‘om’ in Sanskrit
Game time
· None
Ending prayers and pledge
· pUrNamadaH pUrNamidam
pledge
pledge
Rashmi Aunty and Indira Aunty:
We had a lot of new comers joining us today. A warm welcome to all of you! We started with the beginning prayers, chanting them together. We added a new one 'sthaavaram ...' today. It is the 4th verse in the gurustotram. We will be learning all the 14 verses of the gurustotram this year.
In gIta chanting, we learnt the 1st two verses. We had a lot of fun repeating difficult words and learning to pronounce them correctly. We did girls vs boys - one group would repeat after aunty and then the other would do the same. We were trying to see which group could do it loud and clear. Guess what, it was a tie!! Both the groups did so well that aunties couldn't decide which group they wanted to belong :).
We then sang the 'raama hare..' song and went right into the story. We brushed up what we had done in the last class briefly. The children did remember a lot of the details that we had said last time! We built on that and learnt more about the setting of bhaagavatam, who wrote it, how naarada-ji inspired vedavyaasa to write it, who is naarada-ji, how shaunaka rishi's disciples heard about this from suuta-ji, etc.
We learnt the 4 important things we will achieve by listening to the story of bhaagavatam-
* How to be happy
* How and why God took avataaras
* What did He do when He took the avataaras
* Whom did He save and why
We also gave a brief introduction to how king parIkshit met kali, who was harassing a white bull, which represented dharma. The white cow representing mother earth was standing there in tears. We learnt that the bull had 3 of its legs broken and was painfully standing on the one leg. We learnt that each leg represented a value. We will learn more about it in the next class. The children have taken notes. Please review the new words with them and encourage them to practice saying them.
We wrote 'om' a few times. Then we ended the class with ending prayers and pledge. It was a fun class over all! See you all next week.
________________________________________________
Alka Aunty and Prasad Uncle:
Beginning prayers--
We started the class chanting OM ,Sahanavavatu followed by 2-3 min meditation. We are teaching the children how to chant OM.
We chanted 3 shlokas of Guru stotram.
Next activity was chanting the "Ganapati Stotram", which describes 12 different names of Lord Ganesha.
Story time--
We continuted with the explanation of trinity , Lord Vishnu as a protector and why lord has taken different avataras. The children repeated the names of all the ten avataras.
Children learnt about who wrote Bhagavam and how many verses are there in it. Next week we will continue the story of Narada and story of Parikshit and Kali.
Geeta chating --
The children learnt to chant the first shloka of Chapter 12th. All the famlies have received a copy of hand book upon registration , the hand book has the Geeta chapter 12th in Devnagari as well as English , Please print the english vesion and sent it with your child for next week.
Also, We have asked the children to bring a notebook and pencils/pens.
We ended the class with Aarti and pledge.
See you again next Sunday.
Thank you. HariOM.
