October 28th Class - CORD Walkathon

Beginning Prayers:

• shuklaambaradharam, saraswati namastubhyam, gururbrahma

gitaa chanting:

• none

hanumaan shlokas/bhajans:

• buddhirbalam
• hanumaan bhajans

Brain Storming:

• What is giving

Story time:

• Glass of milk

Activity:

• 5k Walk!!

Ending Prayers:

• pUrNamadaH pUrNamidam

Comments:

Rashmi Aunty and Prajna didi:

Madhuri Aunty and Shilpa Aunty:

Today was a special day for balavihar!  We all assembled at Mercer County Park as we were all raising money for CORD.  We had already learnt that CORD stands for Chinmaya Organization for Rural Development.  We spoke about why we wanted to raise money and why we had to participate in the walkathon.  When we questioned the children, why do we have to walk, now that we have given the money, why can't we just go back home?  The children did have an answer for that!  They said, we want to show that we are a whole big team working for a cause, hence the walkathon!!  Here's proof that we have a bunch of really kind hearted, intelligent and knowledgeable kids.

To go with our theme of giving, we listened to the story of 'A glass of milk'.  There was once a poor boy who was very hungry and cold.  He did not know where to go and stood in the cold for a long time.  Finally, not able to bear it anymore, he thought of asking someone for food and knocked on the door of a house near by.  A kind looking young lady opened the door.  At that moment, the boy hesitated to ask for food.  So, he ended up asking for just a glass of water to drink.  But that lady brought him a tall warm glass of milk instead.  With that, not only his hunger was quenched, he felt warm and energized!

Many years later, that same lady was admitted to a hospital with a grave disease.  When a doctor was looking through her charts and saw the name of her hometown, his eyes lit up.  He went to see the lady and, lo and behold, it was the same lady that had energized him on a cold winter day, years ago!  He was a doctor now!  He immediately took over her case, gave her the best treatment and took special care of her.  After a long battle, she was cured and well enough to go home.  When the bills were being made, the doctor asked to see the bills for his approval.  When it came to him, he wrote something on the bottom of the bill and sent it to the lady.  The lady could not hold her tears back, for, it said, 'Paid in full, with a glass of milk'!!  The deed of kindness she had sown had come right back to her!  Even if you never see the deed again, atleast you would have made the world a better place.

We related to this story, our act of giving to the needy.  We have just assisted in making the world a better place for someone we may never come to know.  But atleast, we know we did our share in helping them.

The children were even more energized and enthusiastic about the walk after hearing about the role they were playing.  We all promised that if we felt fatigued during the walk, we would remind ourselves about all the children that would be able to buy books and clothes, because we were walking today.

We finished off with chanting hanumaan shloka and a couple hanumaan bhajans to make us all the more energetic!  It was a great walk and even mother nature held off for the walkathon today.  The way the predictions are going, hurricane Sandy may be here anytime now.  All of you please be safe and we will see you all next week.

October 21st Class

Beginning Prayers:

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

gitaa chanting:

• 13th adhyaaya 1- 3 shlokas

hanumaan shlokas/bhajans:

• buddhirbalam
• hanumaan chaalIsa 1- 6 chaupas

Brain Storming:

• What is health
• What is alertness

Story time:

• If 'something' is lost.... quote
• Lazy Misty
• How Leo learned to be King

Activity:

• 'PS check please' - Police, catch the thieves game

Ending Prayers:

• sarvebhavantu sukhinaH
• pUrNamadaH pUrNamidam
• aarati and pledge

Comments:

Rashmi Aunty and Prajna didi:

Oh, what a fun class it was today!  These are a set of super smart 2nd graders!  They already know the 1st verse of the 13th chapter!!  When we started the gItaa chanting, we thought they would fumble and falter after 'arjuna uvaacha'... but, lo and behold, they very fluently continued into the whole verse and went into the beginning of the 2nd verse as well.  We were so pleasantly surprised!  Good going kids and parents, nice encouragement and home :).

Proceeding on to learning the meaning of the hanumaan shloka, we learnt about the meaning of the word 'arogataa' -> 'without diseases'.  We had a little Sanskrit lesson too, as in, we learnt how easily our wrong pronunciation can give the complete opposite meaning.  We spoke about 2 kinds of health - mental and physical.  Both are essential for our well being.

To learn about 'ajaaDhyam', which means 'without  laziness', that is - being alert.  To understand better, we heard two different stories - Lazy Misty and How Leo learned to be King.  We had interesting conversations during this time :).  Please ask your children what they remember from those conversations.  To make sure we are all alert, we have come up with a game, which we shall keep playing time and again during our next class.  It is called 'PS check please' game.  Pssst... It stands for 'Posture and Smile check please' :).  The whole class has to be police.  If they see someone who does not have good posture or is not happily participating in the class, they would be caught as thieves!  There is a little twist to the game.  If aunty or didi say 'PS check' with their right hand raised, then the police get to work.  But if they raise the left hand and say, then all the alert police say, 'false alarm'!  If someone catches thieves for the left hand raise, then they themselves shall be thieves :).  We all strive to not become thieves and remain police, police our own posture and smiles that is...  This keeps us alert and attentive.  We had a lot of fun playing this game today.

We then spoke about CORD walkathon.  We will be meeting at the Mercer County Park next week and have an open air (short) balavihar session and proceed to the walkathon.  It is load of fun!  We will see you all there.  Remember, it counts for the attendance prize :).  If you have not already registered, please do so at the above link, in the announcements section.

See you at the park next week!

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Madhuri Aunty and Shilpa Aunty:

 Whole class did Japa Mala Shri Rama jaya Rama jaya jaya Rama
Brainstorming : What is Fame? How do we achive it?
Activity: What Do I Want To Be When I Grow Up
Bhajan Parijatha Tharunivasa
Dhairyam Courage
What is Courage?
Tale: The Transformation Of Ratnakara
Rosa Park's Courage
Bhagavad Gita Verses: 1-4
Hanuman chalisa Chanting
 Oct 28th :CORD

October 14th Class

Beginning Prayers:

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

gitaa chanting:

• 13th adhyaaya 1- 3 shlokas

hanumaan shlokas/bhajans:

• buddhirbalam
• hanumaan chaalIsa 1-6 chaupas

Brain Storming:

• What is Courage
• What is Fearlessness

Story time:

• Story of ratnaakara (vaalmIki)
• Story of Rosa Parks
• Tapovan-ji maharaj
• The timid rabbit

Activity:

• None

Ending Prayers:

• sarvebhavantu sukhinaH
• pUrNamadaH pUrNamidam
• aarati and pledge in the auditorium

Comments:

Rashmi Aunty and Prajna didi:

We are doing our initial prayers, meditation and chanting very well.  Parents, please encourage them to practice their shlokas regularly.

We revisited the meaning of the hanumaan shloka we are learning.  We have already learnt the meaning of a few of the words and the children did remember all of them!  Good going kids!!  We moved on to learn the meaning of 2 more words today, with illustrations through stories.  We learnt that 'dhairyam' means Courage.  Also, we learnt 'nirbhayatvam' means fearlessness.  We learnt that these two words are supportive to each other.  When we become fearless, we automatically become courageous!  We heard 4 different stories to establish how these aspects help us to lead a life of honesty and righteousness.  The brainstorming session was quite interesting.  We went on to discuss about daily issues like bullying, etc and how we have to face such situations with courage.

We then finished off with our ending prayers and proceeded to the auditorium for aarati and pledge.  We will see you all next week.  In the meanwhile, do not forget to register yourself for the CORD walkathon which is on the 28th.  The link to register is available above, in the announcements section.

See you soon!
________________________________________________

Madhuri Aunty and Shilpa Aunty:

Hari Om

October 7th Class

Beginning Prayers:

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

gitaa chanting:

• 13th adhyaaya 1- 2 shlokas

hanumaan shlokas/bhajans:

• buddhirbalam
• hanumaan chaalIsa 1-6 chaupas
• hanumaan bhajan

Brain Storming:

• Difference between physical and mental strength

Story time:

• bhIma and hanumaan's tail
• Gandhi-ji and cheating
• Swami Chinmayanandaji

Activity:

• None

Ending Prayers:

• sarvebhavantu sukhinaH
• pUrNamadaH pUrNamidam
• aarati and pledge

Comments:

Rashmi Aunty and Prajna didi:

Welcome new-comers, to our class.  Our class is still very young, but our youngsters are already grooving along very well!  They know our routine well and tell us the order of things we follow in class already!

After our beginning prayers and chanting, we went on to learn about the next aspect of hanumaan in the verse 'buddhirbalam...'.  We have already learnt 'buddhi = intellect'.  Today we learnt about 'balam = strength'.  To illustrate that, we heard a couple of stories.  First was about bhIma and hanumaan, where bhIma became arrogant about his physical strength and lost his mental humility and focus.  That deterred his mental strength as well.  But he became humble in front of hanumaan and regained his strength.  This showed us mental strength is equally important as physical strength.  Then, we heard the story of Gandhi-ji where he refused to cheat in an exam.  This showed us that, even if one is not physically strong, his mental strength can prove greater sometimes!  Ofcourse, praying to hanumaan gives us both these strengths!!

We went on to learn about the next word of the verse 'yashas = fame'.  To understand that, we heard the biography of our beloved Gurudev Swami Chinmayananda-ji.  We learnt about how he went as Balakrishna Menon, a journalist and became so engrossed with the teaching the guru-s were giving.  He then became Swami Chinmayananda-ji as we know him and he became famous due to spreading the spiritual knowledge among the masses.

We then finished with the ending prayers.  Parents, please encourage the children to practice the gItaa chanting we have been learning, as well as the other prayers.  

See you all soon.

________________________________________________

Madhuri Aunty and Shilpa Aunty:

Likitha  japa: started the class with ' sriram jayaram' likitha japa.

Starting prayers:

Sahana vavathu
Saraswathy namasthubyam
Guru brahma
Vakrathuda

Classroom: we have quite a few new comers! and welcome all!.

Dhyana sloka was chanted few times. A recap of the invisible back bone qualities and the story discussion of first quality buddih was done for all the new kids.

We discussed about the second quality of the invisible backbone 'balam'. How food, exercises and a healthy living can give us visible balam and what are the ways to achieve invisible balam.

The story of Bhima's first encounter with Hanuman and how hanuman taught  Bhima 's pride was his weakness and his real strength ( balam) is he has to be humble so that he could be more stronger was narrated to the kids.

We then chanted the maha mruthyunjaya mantra for children celebrating their birthday that week praying for their longer and healthy life.

Also revised the Doha and first 6 chaupais in hanuman chalisa since there were new kids in the class this week.

Special thanks to Mira aunty who also helped us in the classroom and also chanted the first 2 verses in bhgavad Gita.

The class came to an end with the ending prayers.

Lots of enthusiasm amongst kids. They love listening to stories and also participate in discussions.

Reminders:
Note book, pencil/pen, color markers, my prayers book, super hanuman book, balavihar handbook, Gita chanting printout. - All of these must be brought to every balavihar session.

We kindly request the parents to drop off kids by 10:00am. Other kids easily get distracted during likitha japa or meditation when other kids walk in late. Parents, please bring kids on time.

Will see you all next week.