Friday, October 19, 2012

October 14th, 2012 Class Journal



Next Class: Oct 21st, 2012

We started the Balavihar classes at the new school this week. School is P.S. #3 (Frank R. Conwell school). The address for the school is 111 Bright St, Jersey City, NJ.

The classes were split based on the kids school grades. We have started of with 3 classes... PreK, Kindergarten, 1st and 2nd combined.

Kindergarten Class Journal - Teachers: Harshala aunty & Meenakshi


The class started with the prayers and shlokas.

Prayers/Shlokas


Bhajans

 Geeta Chanting
 
1st verse of Bhagvat Geeta Chapter 13

Guru Names - What is Guru? Guru means teacher.
  • Swami Chinmayananda
  • Swami Tejomayananda
  • Swami Shantananda


Yoga

The kids had a great time doing yoga.
  • Tree pose
  • windmill 
  • quiet mouse
  • candle pose
  • lion pose
  • butterfly pose

Meditation


Our kids meditated on Lord Ganesha's picture for 2 minutes. 

Sanskrit colors and body parts

First we played 'Krishna Says' game for learning Sanskrit Body parts.

  • Shirah (Head)
  • Karnah (ears)
  • Nasika (nose)
  • netram (eyes)
  • hastah (hands)
  • Padah ( feet)
  • Jivah (Tongue)
  • Udanam (Stomach)
  • Dantaha (teeth) 
  • kandaha (shoulders)
  • janu (knees)
The kids sung head, shoulders, knees and toes using sanskrit body parts. 
Second, we played the recognizing sanskrit colors games.
  • RED - Raktah
  • BLUE - Nilah
  • YELLOW - Pitah
  • GREEN - Haritah
  • WHITE - Shvetah
  • BLACK - Shamal 
Sanskrit Vowels 

 Continued learning the sanskit vowels and practised writing the 1st 2 vowels. The kids were introduced to tracing on letters "R,a,m" in  Devnagari as a preparation for Likhit Japa.

 Story: United we stand
We talked about what families  consist of. Family means that members love and care for each other and have similar  ideas  and values.When we visit Balavihar, we are with the Chinmaya family. Our country, the United States, is a family. All families together form world family. An individual finger can be moved easily but when we join all fingers and make a fist, it is difficult to open the fist by moving individual fingers. 
 A bird catcher spreads seeds on ground with his net. Birds get trapped as they come to peck them. Birds realize they are trapped and flutter wings to free themselves. An old wise bird advises " Let us fly together  and we can be  all free. United we stand and we are strong" The birds follow the advice and rescue themselves. 
Moral :  We are strong when we are united.


Activity

There wasnt any time for activity this week.

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1st & 2nd Grade Class Journal - Teachers: Deepa & Mythili

The students are Varun, Veer, Jeet from last year and Amirtha and Swetha have joined us this year. Its a good mix of kids ranging from 6 to 9. Each kid was given a folder to keep and bring to each class. They were very excited to receive their own folders.

The kids started off saying the daily prayers.

Daily Prayers/Shlokas
They started learning Guru Storam and almost everyone got the first verse by the end of the class.

Akhanda Mandala Kaaram
Vyaptam Yena Charaa Charam
Tat Padam Darshitam Yena
Tasmai Shri Gurave Namah.  

Bhajans
 Geeta Chanting
 
The kids started off with the 1st verse of Bhagvat Geeta Chapter 13. They learned what Geeta is, who was talking to who and what one learns from the Geeta verses.

Yoga

The kids had a great time doing yoga.
  • Tree pose
  • windmill 
  • quiet mouse
  • candle pose
  • lion pose
  • butterfly pose
Meditation

Our kids meditated on Lord Ganesha's picture for 2 minutes. They were able to sit for long during meditation without being distracted.

Sanskrit colors and body parts

First we played 'Krishna Says' game for learning Sanskrit Body parts.
  • Shirah (Head)
  • Karnah (ears)
  • Nasika (nose)
  • netram (eyes)
  • hastah (hands)
  • Padah ( feet)
  • Jivah (Tongue)
  • Udanam (Stomach)
  • Dantaha (teeth) 
  • kandaha (shoulders)
  • janu (knees)
The kids sung head, shoulders, knees and toes using sanskrit body parts. 
Second, we played the recognizing sanskrit colors games.
  • RED - Raktah
  • BLUE - Nilah
  • YELLOW - Pitah
  • GREEN - Haritah
  • WHITE - Shvetah
  • BLACK - Shamal 
Sanskrit Vowels 

 Continued learning the sanskit vowels and practised writing the 1st 2 vowels. The kids were introduced to tracing on letters "R,a,m" in  Devnagari as a preparation for Likhit Japa.

 Story

The first graders of Bal Vihar follow Bala Ramayana text book for the year. We read Bala Ramayana book's first chapter.

Activity

For art, they sued play-doh to make Om and Ganesha God. They had fun playing with the doh and making their own versions of Ganesha.

We will continue learning Guru Stotram and Gita (Chapter 13) in the upcoming classes.

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Arti - Om Jai Jagadish Hare


 Ending Prayer

Om Poornamadah Poornamidam 

Comments

The kids gather in the cafeteria for the starting prayers at 10am. The teachers then escort the kids to their individual classes at 10:15am. The classes run until 11:30am. The classes come back to the cafeteria for arti and ending prayers until noon.

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