Prayers:
· ॐ सहनाववतु - Om sahanaavavatu (My prayers, pg. 6)
Yoga segment: Lion Pose, Stretching, Butterfly Pose, Cobra Pose, Tree Pose, Namaskara
Shlokas:
· कराग्रे वसते लक्ष्मीः - karaagre vasate lakshmIH (My prayers, pg. 43)
· वक्रतुण्ड महाकाया - vakratuNDa mahaakaayaa
· सरस्वति नमस्तुभ्यम् - saraswati namastubhayam (My prayers, pg. 44)
· बुद्दिर्बलं - buddirbalaM (Lord HanumAn shloka)
Bhajans:
· aÉÉrÉÌ§É qÉl§ÉÇ - Á pÉÔpÉÑïuÉÈ xuÉÈ gAyatri mantraM - oum bhUrbhuvaH swaH
· lÉlSsÉÉsÉÉ rÉSÒlÉlSsÉÉsÉÉ – nandalAlA yadunandalAlA (My prayers, pg. 53)
· xÉÑoÉë¼hrÉqÉç xÉÑoÉë¼hrÉqÉç - suBrahmanyam suBrahmanyam (My prayers, pg. 62)
· Oh Great God GaNapathy, I bow to thee
Geeta Chanting: Chapter 11, shloka 1 – 4
Art Project: coloring blocks
Shloka before meal: ब्रह्मार्पणम् – BrahmArpaNam (My prayers, pg. 45)
Snack/Juice: provided by Avni and family & Special snack from Satvik and family : धन्यवादः (DhanyavaadaH).
Story Segment: Theme: sharing: Aansi and the turtle(a Nigerian tale)
Sanskrit lesson of the week: U£üÈ raktaH- Red mÉÏiÉÈ peetaH- Yellow WûËUiÉÈ haritaH- Green lÉÏsÉÈ neelaH- Blue µÉåiÉÈ shwetaH- White Ì¢üwlÉÈ krishnaH- Black ; Counting 1 - 10;
Game Segment: Colors
End of class:
ॐ पूर्णमदः - Om poornamadaH.
Aarati and Pledge in the auditorium
Comments: On behalf of the Toddler team we would like to extend a warm welcome to our new friends! We hope you enjoy your Balavihar sessions as much as we do. As usual we started by chanting ॐ three times and went on to Yoga with Rupa Aunty. After warming up with Yoga stretches, we said our shlokas and sang Bhajans. We learnt to sing the aÉÉrÉÌ§É qÉl§ÉÇ (Gayatri mantram). Many of our toddlers have memorized the shlokas have started requesting favorites! We moved on to Gita chanting with Nanda Aunty. Our Sravamti did an awesome job of chanting all the 4 verses!! Way to go! As Nanda Aunty rightly pointed out, even though the children are used to different languages spoken at home, they have caught the right Sanskrit pronunciations just by listening. So, let’s put the sponge in their brain to work and help them absorb all the good stuff! We reviewed colors in Sanskrit. We played a color guessing game and the children loved it! Most of them have the colors memorized. They had colored a rectangular block each with one of the colors: U£üÈ raktaH- Red, mÉÏiÉÈ peetaH- Yellow, WûËUiÉÈ haritaH- Green, lÉÏsÉÈ neelaH- Blue. We will be using these to play a surprise game next Balavihar class. We will also be adding more colors in the coming weeks. We had our snack break following this. We thank Avni’s family for providing the snack and juice today.Also, our special thanks to Satvik and family for bringing us special Sankranti treats! After snack we wound up by counting 1 - 10 and got ready for story time. Today Nanda Aunty told us a story about a little boy named Aansi and his turtle friend. The turtle wanted to get out of the water where it lives and decided to take a walk. Meanwhile, Aansi, a little boy, went looking for some delicious yam to cook and eat for lunch. By the time lunch was ready, the turtle had reached Aansi’s home. Aansi let the turtle in. The turtle was hungry too and hoped that Aansi would invite him to lunch. Now Aansi did not want to share his food and wanted to have it all to himself! So he set the place for the turtle and when the turtle walked up to the dining table, he told the turtle that his hands were dirty as he walked all the way and he needed to wash up. When the turtle slowly went to wash up and get back, Aansi had finished one of the yams. Now, again, he told the turtle that his hands had again become dirty and sent him back to wash up once more! Before the turtle could get back, Aansi ate up all the yams and did not leave anything for the turtle. The turtle decided to teach him a lesson for not sharing. So he invited Aansi for lunch in turn and made the yummiest of dishes and set them at the table in his home under the water. When Aansi came he wore a jacket filled with stones in the pockets to make it heavy for him to sink under water to get to the turtle’s table. The turtle told him that he needed to take out his jacket and sit down to lunch. The moment Aansi removed his jacket, he became light weighted and floated up and up and away to the surface of the water and never got to eat the delicious food at the turtle’s place! The moral of the story: We should always be willing to share with our friends and not be selfish! If Aansi had been kind and shared his lunch with the turtle, the turtle would not have played a trick on him! At the end of class, we chanted ॐ पूर्णमदः - Om poornamadaH and completed today’s class. Today’s Aarati and Pledge were at the Auditorium. Hope to see you all next week. The new parents, please be sure to provide us with the name of your child and your e-mail ID to be included in our mailing group.
