April 26 Class

Words of the Week: वानरः (vaanaraH, monkey)
List of the "Words of the Week"

Prayers Recited:

• OM saha naavavatu ("My Prayers," pg. 6 )
• Early Morning Prayer ("My Prayers," pg. 43)
• Before Studies Prayer ("My Prayers," pg. 44)
• Before Evening Lights Prayer ("My Prayers," pg. 45)
• Guru Brahma ("My Prayers," pg. 9 -- third shloka of Shree Gurustotram)
• Lord Hanuman Shloka
  

Gita Shlokas: Chapter 9, Shlokas 1,2, 3 and 4. In celebration of how well the children did in their chanting yesterday, we began learning the fourth shloka. We will now chant shlokas 1-4. (Audio will be posted soon.)

Bhajans:

• Ganesha Sharanam ("My Prayers," pg. 7)
• Jaya Ganesha ("My Prayers," pg. 7)
  
• Gopaalaa (2nd verse)
• Subramanyan (My Prayers," pg. 62)
• Aanjaneya Raghuveera ("My Prayers, pg. 21)

Handwriting: None

Snack: Provided by Byrav Subramanyan and Pushti -- धन्यवादः!

Story: The Monkey and the Pickle

Art Project: Sponge Art Picture of Bird, Sponge Art Picture of Bumblebee, and Sponge Art Picture of Lion.

Sanskrit: We reviewed our animal book, counting and वानरः वादति.

End of Class: Poornamadah.

Comments: Wow! How nice to see all of our children wearing their medals today! We are very proud of them (and the parents) for working so hard throughout the year, being consistent and disciplined with learning their assigned shlokas. Some of the children even went on to learn Shlokas 4 and 5 – how cool is that?!!! So, even though the competition has ended, we want the children to continue chanting the Gita in every class – it is part of our weekly curriculum, and will not end with the competition. Today we started Shloka 4, which we will chant until the end of the year.

Parents, please reserve some time in your schedule to help out with the end of the year decorations. This is the Toddler and Pre-K's class contribution to the June 14 program – and it can only become a success by the parents and children helping out! Rashmi Auntie is key coordinator for the project, so please be sure and speak with her if you are able to volunteer your time. She will be bringing more details about the decorations and projects to the next class. Stay tuned ...

Our end of the year book project is coming along nicely. We cruised through another 3 animals, which means we are half way done. At this rate, we will definitely be completed by May 17. The children will be making 2 extra books – 1 to give to Swamiji and 1 to take to the Sevika Training Camp in India. If your children did not hand in their signature, please see to it that we receive it next class. Also, we will be taking a class picture on May 10th. It would be great if everyone was in Indian dress that day :-)

Don't let us forget that we need to spend a few miutes at our next class talking about our June 7th party! Sometimes we have so much to cover in one class, we end up putting this item at the end of the agenda. For all of you great chefs out there, please be sure and sign up to share one of your favorite dishes. We'll definitely want you to share your culinary skills ...

Have another great break. Next class is May 10th (Mother's Day). However, we'll all probably be meeting up at the beach before then ...

April 19 Class

Words of the Week: मत्स्यः (matsyaH, fish) and तन्तुनाभः (tantunaabhaH, spider)
List of the "Words of the Week"

Prayers Recited:

• OM saha naavavatu ("My Prayers," pg. 6 )
• Early Morning Prayer ("My Prayers," pg. 43)
• Before Studies Prayer ("My Prayers," pg. 44)
• Before Evening Lights Prayer ("My Prayers," pg. 45)
• Guru Brahma ("My Prayers," pg. 9 -- third shloka of Shree Gurustotram)
• Lord Hanuman Shloka
  

Gita Shlokas: Chapter 9, Shlokas 1,2 and 3.

Bhajans:

• Ganesha Sharanam ("My Prayers," pg. 7)
• Jaya Ganesha ("My Prayers," pg. 7)
  
• Gopaalaa (2nd verse)
• Subramanyan (My Prayers," pg. 62)
• Aanjaneya Raghuveera ("My Prayers, pg. 21)

Handwriting: Practiced Writing OM

Snack: Provided by Aditya Rai and Shreya Atluri -- धन्यवादः!

Story: The Three Fish

Art Project: Sponge Art Picture of Fish, Sponge Art Picture of Turtle, and Sponge Art Picture of Spider.

Sanskrit: We reviewed all the animals in the Sponge Art Book we are Making. (For complete list of animals click here.)

End of Class: Poornamadah.

Comments: We had two more new friends join our class today! We want to extend a very warm "Hari OM" and welcome to Sahana and Sidarth. We look forward to seeing them every Sunday morning, and hope they will have a great time with their classmates.

The children are definitely ready for next week's Gita Chanting -- they now sing along with Auntie, instead of repeating after her. Nice job, parents! Once we are notified of our time slot, we will post the info at the top of this blog (in announcement section.) Please make sure that you check back here. We will also send out an email, but for some reason, not everyone gets their mail -- so, this blog will be the surest and most accurate bet :-) Hope to see everyone there!

This lovely weather is now reminding us that we only have another month or so before we break for the summer. We're really going to miss our regular Sunday morning get togethers. Our last class day will be June 7. On that day, our class will have a party -- a good ol' "let's have fun" kinda party! We will discuss more details in class next week. (We'll definitely be calling on parents for tasty foods.) If the weather is nice, we will plan to spend the morning outdoors where the children can blow bubbles and run around. But, before we let them run loose, we'll need to assemble our Sanskrit Book together in the cafeteria (shouldn't take more than 10 or 15 minutes.)

Also, hopefully, everyone will be able to make class on May 10. We would like to take a class picture of all the children so we can have it published in their Animal Book.

Many thanks to all the parents for helping today. We appreciate you stepping in and lending a hand while the other sevikas were in conference. Hopefully, we'll crank through another 3 animal pictures next week. At this rate, we will meet our goal of 13 animals by the end of May!

Enjoy this fabulous weather! We look forward to seeing all of you on Saturday at the Ashram, and Sunday in Class.

April 5 Class

Words of the Week: शीघ्रम (shiighram, fast) and मन्दम् (mandam, slow)
List of the "Words of the Week"

Prayers Recited:

• OM saha naavavatu ("My Prayers," pg. 6 )
• Early Morning Prayer ("My Prayers," pg. 43)
• Before Studies Prayer ("My Prayers," pg. 44)
• Before Evening Lights Prayer ("My Prayers," pg. 45)
• Guru Brahma ("My Prayers," pg. 9 -- third shloka of Shree Gurustotram)
• Lord Hanuman Shloka
  

Gita Shlokas: Chapter 9, Shlokas 1,2 and 3.

Bhajans:

• Ganesha Sharanam ("My Prayers," pg. 7)
• Jaya Ganesha ("My Prayers," pg. 7)
  
• Gopaalaa (2nd verse)
• Subramanyan (My Prayers," pg. 62)
• Aanjaneya Raghuveera ("My Prayers, pg. 21)

Handwriting: None

Snack: Provided by Vansh Linga and Siddarth Madireddy -- धन्यवादः!

Story: Tortoise and the Hare

Art Project: Sponge Art Picture of Mouse.

Sanskrit: We read the book "Big, Little" by SAMI, played shashakaH vadati., using our new opposite words, शीघ्रम् and मन्दम् . Also we reviewed counting.

End of Class: Poornamadah.

Comments: Happy Birthday to Vansh -- he turned four on Friday! (Not a toddler anymore, mom and dad ...)

We had two new friends join our class today! We want to extend a very warm "Hari OM" and welcome to them. We look forward to seeing them every Sunday morning, and hope they will have a great time with their classmates.

Our Geeta Chanters are doing super -- no question about it! Today the children belted out the shlokas (no parental help) with the greatest confidence they've shown all year. Honestly, we are so proud of them! As of this morning, we have 15 students registered, which is fantastic. However, our chanting won't seem complete without everyone there. So, if you have not registered your child, please do so. Even if they do not have all three shlokas memorized, they should not miss out on this day. What is important is that they feel the uplifting rewards of having chanted their shlokas with their friends. There is no way to truly measure the pride and self-esteem these children will experience by being part of the group chanting and receiving a medal for all their effort. They will remember this day for a very long time.

Even though we had a lot of material to cover in class -- we still managed to get through it all -- on schedule! Today was especially busy because we did something a little different during our art project time. Because the children have done extremely well with their Sanskrit learning this year, we want them to have something to remember their friends and class with during summer break. Sooooo, from now until class sessions end, we will dedicate our art segment to the children creating a page for a book that will be completed at our end-of-the-year party. They will make their own animal picture book in Sanskrit. Parents, please keep your child's drawing somewhere safe (and unwrinkled), so that we can work on assembling the pages together in June. (Click here to see a sample of the book.)

Also, mark your calendars for April 15 - 17. Swamiji will be giving a discourse on Bhagavad Gita, chapter 12. This is a wonderful opportunity to spend some focused satsang time at the ashram and put things into perspective! Please be sure and join us.

We're going to miss everyone during break. Have a wonderful vacation -- and enjoy all that outdoor playing.

Oh yeah, kids -- don't forget, we've got a pizza party with Swamiji on Saturday, April 11. I'm guessing we're going to have a lot of fun that day :-)