Hariom Parents,
Today was our second Balavihar session for this year. We have an energetic group who have good friends in class so that is always something very good. So, today we decided we will have 1 game every class so all the children can have fun and as we learn our shlokas and our syllabus we would focus on that.
Started the class with 3 oms followed by Opening prayers
Ganesh Pancharathnam : We revised the 1st shloka and learnt the 2nd verse. Keshav knew from Ganesh Pancharatnam so today he was the teachers assistant and taught his friends along with the teacher the shloka.
Today's game / fun time : This was circle time saying knock knock jokes...The kids had a lot of fun going around the circle.
Since we just had Ganesha chaturthi we wanted to know more about Ganesha. Today we plan to learn more about Ganesha and Ganesh Chaturthi how it is celebrated in various states in India
Story of the birth of Ganesha was shared by Anahita and Jai.
Circle time: Was to discuss about the qualities of Ganesha and their favorite god (Ishta Devata)..We also if we could shared why we love the god
We have only 2 children of the 10 kids in class today who were not sure about their ishta devata or favorite god...It was so quick to come most of them had reasons from I don't know why but I just love him/her...to my dad/mom told me as a kid a story which I really liked and ever since I loved..to not sure...The children who could not come up with a response we wanted them to think about it and come back to us on the God/Goddess they love.
We then had 1 minute of quiet time...This was very difficult for our group to stay quiet then we discussed how silence helps us focus and become good listeners. This is a skill both young and old need to work on...We then continued our Ganesha story of a keen listener with his big ears and how we pray to him for his intellect. The story of how his strong intellect made him win the mango in the race between Ganesha and Karthikeya was shared by Paramaarth and Ishaan.
Story of how Ganesha festival was popularized in Maharashtra as a community festival by Lokmanya Tilak and how Tilak had a picture perfect memory was shared with the class. To be a listener who can verbatim narrate and a 2 page document after listening to it one time amazed the children.
We also learnt how Ganesha festival is celebrated in Maharashtra for 5-7 days and how idols of ganesha are made with clay and visarjan is done on 5th or 7th or 9th day of the festival. Janak then shared his experience on how he had gone to India once during the festival and experienced visarjan when the idol was taken to the nearby river to be immersed.
We then moved to reading our Junior Mahabharata book. We covered the first chapter.
Ganesha being asked by Vedavyasa to write the book and how Ganesha said he has to dictate the verses without stopping in between and how Vedavyasa promised to
Ganesha he would but Ganesha should understand every verse before he writes it.
We then continued with the story of Shantanu and Ganga. How Shantanu fell in love with this beautiful maiden Ganga and how she told he should never ask her who she was or question what she did. Ganga had 7 children with shantanu who she took to the river and dropped the infant in the river. When the 8th child was born King Shantanu could no longer keep quiet and asked his wife why she did this. To this the maiden revealed her identity as Ganga and that she took human form only to relieve the 8 vasus from their curse. (Sage Vasishta had cursed the 8 vasus to be born on earth. 7 of them were relieved of the curse as infants but now since Shantanu broke the promise and asked the question. Ganga would leave the king at once with the infant. This infant was then raised by Ganga as Devavrata.)
We finished the class with learning the Sanskrit primer and then proceeded to the temple for Aarati and Pledge.
Please make sure that children have the following as they come to class.
1. My Prayers book
2. Balavihar handbook
3. 2 notebooks - 1 for likhita japa and 1 more composition notebook
4. Pencils and eraser
5.Junior Mahabharata - Part 1 from book store (This book is available now....please get your copies from the book store)
Pranaam,
Meena Rajan and Rameshwari Kale
