September 23rd Class

Beginning Prayers:

• 'om' chanting - 3 times
• meditation
• shuklaambaradharam, saraswati namastubhyam, gururbrahma

gitaa chanting:

• 13th adhyaaya 1st shloka

hanumaan shlokas/bhajans:

• buddhirbalam
• hanumaan chaalIsa

Brain Storming:

• Vitamins for healthy mind

Story time:

• Akbar Birbal story - crows in the city (depicting Intellect)

Activity:

• Copycat commands

Ending Prayers:

• sarvebhavantu sukhinaH
• pUrNamadaH pUrNamidam
• aarati and pledge

Comments:

Rashmi Aunty and Prajna didi:

We had a fun 2nd class today.  Our initial prayers and meditations went very well.  We will be practicing these through out the year.  Children, make sure you come in time for the beginning prayers and meditation.  It is very important to be there on time.  During meditation, the lights will be turned off in the class.  If by chance, any of you come during that time, please wait outside the class till the lights are turned on.  This will help the children in class, from getting distracted.  We will open the door once the lights come on.  Parents please help them to come to class on time, so they do not miss out on the meditation time.

We then proceed to learn chanting of the gItaa, hanumaan shlokas and hanumaan chaalIsa as well.  Parents please encourage them to practice at home.  You have the verses in the book that you've 'The Super Superman Hanumaan'.

It was time for our recap then.  We sure have an attentive bunch of children.  They had all the answers and then some thoughts to share after that!  We have started learning about the 'vitamins' that nourish our 'invisible' back bone!!  They are the 8 characteristics of hanumaan, that we can also acquire by praying the Lord hanumaan.  We learnt that the first of them is 'buddhi', meaning 'intelligence'.  To understand the meaning of intelligence, we heard a couple stories of how Birbal was intelligent and solved very difficult problems.  Hence, he was King Akbar's favorite.  Ask you children to narrate the stories to you.  Hint: It involves crows in the city :).

We then learnt about japa maala.  The japa maala would have (108 or 54 or 27 beads).  We learnt that the 'guru' bead or the 'meru' bead should never be passed over while doing japa.  By doing japa, we can gain more intelligence due to hanumaan's blessings.

We played 'Copycat commands' game to see how intelligent we are...  and sure enough we could not trick the children into doing wrong actions!!  We had a lot of fun playing this game.

We then finished the class with our ending prayers, aarati and pledge.

We will see you all in two weeks time.  Until then, keep practicing the verse and sharing the stories :).

________________________________________________

Madhuri Aunty and Shilpa Aunty:

1.Beginning prayers

2. Slokas For Ganesha, Saraswathi and guru.

3.We are planning on celebrating birthdays of everyone including teachers by chanting the mana mrithyumjaya mantram in the class. On that note we chanted 3 times for the children that had birthdays this week.

4. Dyana sloka- we spoke about what kind of power hanuman has and all that constitutes this power which forms the invisible backbone of buddih, balam, yasas, dhairyam, nirbhayatvam, arogatha.


5. Detail explanation of each quality will be discussed every class with a story. This week we discussed what is buddih and how well it can be used. We shared a Akbar Birbal story about the count of crows in the kingdom. Please ask your child to narrate the story.

6. We started learning hanuman chalisa  with the Doha and first 6 chaupais

7. We ended the class with ending prayers and pledge.

A good group of kids and fairly interactive. It is still beginning of the year. Stay tuned for more .!

Next Balavihar is on Oct 7th.

September 16th Class

Beginning Prayers:

• 'om' chanting - 3 times
• meditation
• shuklaambaradharam, saraswati namastubhyam, gururbrahma

gitaa chanting:

• 13th adhyaaya 1st shloka

hanumaan shlokas/bhajans:

• buddhirbalam

Brain Storming:

• None

Story time:

• Empty Pot

Activity:

• None

Ending Prayers:

• pUrNamadaH pUrNamidam

Comments:

Rashmi Aunty and Prajna didi:

Madhuri Aunty and Shilpa Aunty:

HARI OM PARENTS!!!

We hope your children really enjoyed their first day today at balavihar! We sure did!!
As many of you may know, this year, we will be talking about hanumaan, the SUPER superman! As part of the curriculum, the children need a book called Superman Hanuman, which is available very conveniently at the book stall, which is present every week at Crossroads School during our Balavihar classes!

So, we began today's class the same way we will begin every class-- with 3 OMs, a short meditation period,  sahanaavavatu, and three shlokas: shuklaambaradharam viShNum, saraswati namastubhyam, and gururbrahma.

The children learnt about the immense change a small variation in a sanskrit word can make, by noting the difference between 'saraswati namastubhyam' and 'saraswateee namastubhyam'.  'saraswati namstubhyam' means, 'saraswati, I pray to you', but if it is elongated as 'saraswatee', it becomes, 'saraswati IS, I pray to you', which doesn't make a correct sentence.  Hence we have to keep in mind to pronounce the words correctly.

We also began the bhagavadgItaa chanting practice today! This year, for the competition, the second graders need to learn shlokas 1-15 of Chapter 13 of the gItaa, or kShetra-kShetrajna yoga.

We then learnt the shloka of srI hanumaan, 'buddhirbalam', initiating our learning about the Super Superman, hanumaan.

Today, we also listened to a wonderful story that taught us that we should always be courageous and honest, and we should never be afraid to tell the truth, even if others don't. Ask your children about it! Hint: it involves seeds!  This story taught us one of the important characteristics of our Super Superman, hanumaan - Courage!  One needs to have a spine to stand up tall (like vertebrates).  But then, there are a few characteristics like this, that constitute for an invisible spine.  We shall learn more about them as the days go by.

We have split the children into two sections today.  From next class onwards, you can drop off your children in their respective class rooms - C107 or C108.  (Ask your children which section they belong to).

See you all next week!

Hari Om!

Welcome to the Chinmaya Vrindavan 2nd Grade Balavihar blog.

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