Hari Om Parents,
Hope you all had Wonderful time with your family for Navratri. Today was the 4th day of Balavihar Class.
We began the class by chanting three OMs and then the Opening Prayers - Sahana Vavatu, Ganesh and Sarasvati Shlokas. Children repeated the shlokas after us.
Yoga : Children enjoyed doing Brain Yoga - Thoppukaranam, Vrikshasana, and they learnt a new one, Bhujangasana, also known as Cobra Pose,
After this, We discussed what we learnt from previous classes about God and why we need a sweet mind . We can become Sweet people when we develop a Sweet mind and we develop Sweet Mind by learning the Vedanta alphabets and this will help us to connect with God easily. Children recollected well from prior classes and gave apt responses. We started with the Third Lesson from our curriculum which is Letter 'A '- is for Aspiration '.
Brainstorming: The children shared various A words they knew such as Apple, Aeroplane, Alligator, Axe, 'own names starting with A' etc.. We introduced Letter A as "Aspiration" , we discussed what Aspiration means, we pronounced it together and defined Aspiration as the strong determination to achieve our goal. Then we asked each kid to tell us what they aspire to be when they grow big and why? We got wonderful answers from the children such as doctors, illustrators, Strong like Superman/Iron Man , Engineer, Artists etc..
Story Time: Through the story of the Best Archer - Arjuna from Mahabharata and Dronacharya's test. Arjuna had won this test. We discussed how Arjuna became such a good archer.? Arjuna worked hard and practiced regularly, he was determined and focused as he aspired to be the best archer of his time. We concluded that Single- pointed attention is needed to achieve our goal.
Activity: Game: Yes, I Can Reach My Goal! We played a game of Low Five,Hi Five and Higher Hi- Five, with each kid coming over to each teacher and giving us a Low Five, Hi- Five and higher Hi-Five. Children tried their best to jump and reached out to give Higher Hi- Five and Hi - Five. We learnt that, we should not keep our goal too low (easy to achieve and require minimal/no effort) or too high (unrealistic), but we should aspire for something which is in our means and which we can achieve through consistent hard work and focused efforts.
Attendance: Attendance was taken and each kid responded by saying 'Hari Om'.
Today was a short Class of just 45 minutes, as kids performed Saraswati Pooja during the Assembly. Before we proceeded for the assembly , we discussed the Navratri Festival /Durga Pooja. We narrated the story of Goddess Durga and Mahishasura, Why we pray to Goddess Durga, Lakshmi and Sarasvati. We also discussed that Vijaya Dashami day is also celebrated as Dussehra, when Lord Rama defeated Ravana. Some children shared how each one of them celebrated it , Sweets offered , Garba, slokas recital etc..
Saraswathi Pooja: Then we all went to the Assembly, where each kid participated, using the items provided in the pooja thali, offered it to Goddess Saraswathi, while the priest chanted the Slokas.
It was a very interactive class with kids, and we are delighted to see them getting more comfortable with each class.
The audio recording of the Opening prayers, Ganesh, Sarasvati and Guru Slokas have been shared in the WhatsApp group, please make kids practice at home.
Next class : is on Oct 27th, 2024.
