Hari Om Parents,
Today was the 1st class of Balavihar!! It was wonderful to meet your lovely kids and all of you!!
Here is the summary of what we covered in the class :
Opening Prayers: After we went to our classroom 'Gopala' we all sat in a circle crisscrossing our legs, hands together in Namaskar pose, kept our eyes closed, and then we all chanted three OMs and then chanted the Opening Prayers - Sahana Vavatu. And we together chanted Ganesh sloka -Vakra tunda. We also explained to the children the meaning of these prayers and why we start with them.
Discussion time: Explained why we say Hari Om when we see each other and explained how we do it - by keeping hands together in Namaskar pose and greeting each other 'Hari Om'. And emphasized that kids need to start greeting each other and their parents & family in the same way.
Introduction & Ice breaker round/Game: We played some bhajans to play "Pass the box" game through which all children introduced themselves telling us Who is their favorite God and What is their favorite activity. We got wonderful answers and everyone responded well. Attendance was taken as well in the process.
We discussed that God loves us so much and provides us with everything. The whole world runs by His Supreme Power and everything runs in a systematic manner - Day/Night, Seasons,and that he protects us. After this, we started with the first Lesson from our curriculum which starts with a story.
Story Time: Through the story of The Three Questions we learned the answers to the 3 questions :
Who is God ? - God is He, who can do what no one else can do.
Where is God ? - God is everywhere
What does God do? - God can do anything and everything.
Where is God ? - God is everywhere
What does God do? - God can do anything and everything.
Yoga time: We together did 3 times Brain Yoga - Thoppukaranam which is also one way to pray to Lord Ganesha. And explained that this stimulates our brain.
Activity: Alphabet Safari folder was distributed to all the children with prints of the prayers that were taught this week along with the meaning. Children have been asked to color the safari picture and write down their names.
Meet with Parents: Parents joined us in the classroom at 10:20 am and enthusiastically participated in the yoga. We explained the class curriculum and also distributed the handbooks for the year. The children will bring in the folder and handbook for all the future classes. Then we all went to the Main hall for Aarthi and Pledge.
It was a very interactive and exciting first class with kids, many of the kids participated very well and responded to questions. We are proud that kids sat all by themselves without parents around and participated very well in class. We thoroughly enjoyed our time with your wonderful kids and are looking forward to all the classes.
Note: From the next class, you can bring kids directly Gopala by 9:15 a.m. and then pick them up from the Prayer Hall after Aarti & Pledge.
Have a wonderful week ahead!
Next Class:
Sept 22nd
Whatsapp group: (Most parents joined if any parents have not joined please do so now)
Pranams
Shreya and Veda
