December 18, 2011

Prayers:ॐ सहनाववतु - Om sahanaavavatu (My prayers, pg. 6)

Yoga segment: Stretches, Lion Pose, Turtle Pose, Bee Pose , Tree Pose, Snake Pose, Dog pose

Shlokas:

कराग्रे वसते लक्ष्मीः - karaagre vasate lakshmIH (My prayers, pg. 43)

श्री राम राम रामेती - SrI rAma rAma rAmeti
वक्रतुण्ड महाकाया - vakratuNDa mahaakaayaa
बुद्दिर्बलं - buddirbalaM (Lord HanumAn shloka)
सरस्वति नमस्तुभ्यम् - saraswati namastubhyam
वसुदॆवसुतं दॆवं - vasudEvasutaM dEvam (My prayers, Pg.15)

ॐ गम् गणपतयॆ नमः – Om gam gaNapataye namaH

Bhajans:
Subramanyam Subramanyam Shanmuganata Subramanyam
Oh Great God GaNapathy, I bow to thee
खाते भि राम कहो पीते भि राम कहो – khaate bhi Ram kaho peete bhi Ram kaho
गायत्रि मन्त्रं - ॐ भूर्भुवः स्वः – gAyatri mantraM - oum bhUrbhuvaH svaH
Jaya Jaya Devi

Gita chanting: Chapter 12, shloka 1, 2, 3

Art Project: Mouse Candy Cane Ornament

Sanskrit segment: Counting 1 – 10, Colors

Shloka before meal: ब्रह्मार्पणम् – BrahmArpaNam (My prayers, pg. 45) Snack/Juice: Provided by Madhu Aunty : धन्यवादः (DhanyavaadaH).

Story Segment: The story of the Lion and the Mouse

End of class:

सर्वे भवन्तु सुखिनः sarve bhavantu sukhinaH

ॐ पूर्णमदः - Om poornamadaH

Comments: Today was a very cold morning. The kids and the parents were all bundled up and trying to stay warm. It is always nice to see the eager and enthusiastic kids in the class. The kids are settling in well and doing great with our class routine.

We started our class as usual with chanting Om three times. We were all a little sleepy given the cold weather. We needed to wake ourselves up for class, so we did our yoga stretches. We did lot of fun stretches like the Bee pose, Tree pose, Turtle pose, Lion pose and Snake pose. The kids enjoyed buzzing like a bee in the Bee pose, roaring like a lion in the Lion pose, and popping up to say “Hari Om” in the Turtle and Snake poses. It was adorable. We learnt how to do the downward dog and called it the Dog pose.

After Yoga, it was time for Shlokas. The kids loved to help lead the Shlokas. Some of the little helpers were able to lead the Shlokas all by themselves. Vikram and Shruti were helpers with the Shlokas. The rest of the class did an awesome job repeating the shlokas in their loud and enthusiastic voices. Great job kids and thank you parents for helping them practice. After chanting ॐ गम् गणपतयॆ नमः – Om gam gaNapataye namaH 5 times, we started with Bhajans. The kids were eager with their requests. We practiced our new bhajan ‘subrahmaNyam subrahmaNyam’. It is nice to see so many of them joining in and singing to make the Bhajans enjoyable. We loved to dance to Great God Ganapathy and खाते भि राम कहो पीते भि राम कहो – khaate bhi Ram kaho peete bhi Ram kaho. The kids had lots of fun with this and got really creative with the things they do.

Then it was Gita chanting time. We chanted the first and second verses of chapter 12. We are getting better with our Gita chanting. We were able to chant the first and second verse fluently as a group. We are going to keep practicing our verses.

We made a yummy craft at craft time. We made a candy cane mouse ornament. The kids made some really cute mouse. After working hard on their craft, it was snack time.

After snack we counted to 10 in Sanskrit and got ready for Story time. Today we heard the story of ‘The Lion and the Mouse’. We learnt that no one is too small to help and kindness is always repaid in kindness. After the story we tried to remember the colors learnt last week. We added a few more colors to our list. The kids did a great job of remembering the colors. After we learnt our colors, little Krishna visited with us and played a quick game of “Krishna Vadhathi” which is similar to Simon says. The kids had a lot of fun following along with Krishna. It was a great class.

We ended out class with the closing Shlokas.

Happy Holidays and see you all in 2012!