Announcements

Our balavihar classes at Crossroads South Middle School have ended for the academic year.

Have a great summer! Will see you all when the next school year begins.


Sunday, December 9, 2012

December 9th class

Beginning Prayers:
  • 'om' chanting - 3 times
  • meditation
  • shuklaambaradharam, saraswati namastubhyam, gururbrahma
gitaa chanting:
  • 13th adhyaaya 1- 6 shlokas
hanumaan shlokas/bhajans:
  • buddhirbalam
  • hanumaan chaalIsa 1-12 chaupas
Brain Storming:
  • Who is a messenger
  • What is kumati and sumati
Story time:
  • swallowing of the Sun (becoming hanumaan)
  • who is anjani-putra/kesari-nandana/pavana-kumaara
  • anjani's (punjisthalaa's) curse - curse/boon
  • qualities of a messenger
Activity:
  • Are you a good messenger
  • PS check
Ending Prayers:
  • sarvebhavantu sukhinaH
  • pUrNamadaH pUrNamidam
  • aarati and pledge
Comments:
Rashmi Aunty and Prajna didi:
Looks like good progress in the gItaa chanting practice.  We had the kids rolling till the 4th verse all by themselves today!  We have worked on the next 2 verses as well.  Learnt few more new verse in hanumaan chaalIsa.  During story time, we learnt the meanings for a lot of words in hanumaan chaalIsa. We learnt that anjani-putra means devI anjanI's son.  We heard about the story of how punjisthalaa had disturbed the penance of a sage with monkey like pranks and was cursed to be born as a monkey.  When she realized her mistake, she did penance for Lord shiva and turned her curse into a boon.  The Lord promised to be born as her son and redeem her birth as a monkey.  Hence, Lord shiva was born as hanumaan.  His divine father was pavana, the Lord of wind and hence the name pavana-kumara.  His earthly father was kesarI, a very courageous monkey.  kesarI-nandana means kesarI's son, and one who made kesarI happy.  We spoke about what makes one a nandana(boy)/nandinI(girl).  We had a check list for that too.   The children came up with the idea that they want it put up on the blog so they can print it!  So here it is.  Click here to print the nandana/nandinI check list.
We then spoke about the many stories regarding kumati (bad intellect) and sumati (good intellect).  We saw how a jealous neighbor wanted to hurt his neighbor, even at the cost of getting hurt himself.  We have some very good children who said, they would not bother with what the neighbor has or not, but would be very happy to just have what they needed!!
We spoke about why hanumaan is called raama-duuta.  It means raama's messenger.  A good messenger is very focused, does not get distracted, alert and time conscious.  hanumaan had all these qualities.  To see if we are good messengers, we played a game of passing the message around the class.  If we passed the message correctly to the last person in the class, that means we have good messengers...  And, we did!
For parents who brought in the money today for the Seva project, our many thanks.  For those who haven't we encourage you to do so in the next class.
See you all next Sunday.  Until then, stay warm.
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Madhuri Aunty and Shilpa Aunty:

Hari Om