Friday, October 26, 2012

October 21st, 2012 Class Journal



Next Class: Oct 28st, 2012

We had 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.

First we gathered in the school cafeteria for starting prayers. The kids are then escorted to their individual classes by their teachers.


PreK  Class Journal - Teachers: Ramya and Anisha


The class started with the prayers and shlokas.

Prayers/Shlokas


Bhajans

  

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

Story 
Ganesh mousecapade


Meditation
  • We clicked a picture of Ganesha and meditated on him
Talk about the beauty of the world god created. Enjoy and appreciate fall colors.

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Kindergarten Class Journal - Teachers: Harshala aunty and Meenakshi



The class started with the prayers and shlokas.

Prayers/Shlokas


Bhajans



Daily prayer : For new students, we practiced Karagre vasate(morning prayer, pg 14 new My Prayer book)

Learned meaning of first two lines of the Shantipath Sahanavavtu... May God protect us both. May He nourish us.
 

Bhagavat Geeta Chanting: First 2 verses of chapter 13th



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. 


Story:
Meenakshi aunty told the Story of ugly duckling.


Moral : We all are beautiful just like Nitoo ,when we realized God created each of us as unique and beautiful.


Activity


Students enjoyed Sanskrit alphabet bingo. Also writing Sanskrit first 4 alphabet vowel letters.

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1st and 2nd Grade Class Journal - Teachers: Deepa


Kids - Jeet, Veer, Varun, Amirtha, Ayush

Instead of having attendance, we taught the kids how to say their names when they enter class. Everyone said "Hari Om, I am XXX". Because we are learning Bala Ramayana, we are learning new words like "Putra". So they practised saying "I am X and Y's Putra/Putri".


The kids then 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 learned the 2nd verse of GuruStotram and completed the first verse of Geeta (Chapter 13). Please make your kids practice this at home. The prayers and Geeta are in the book.



Yoga

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


Story


The kids read the 2nd chapter where King Dasharata conducts Yaga. The kids learned the meaning of Yaga, why it was conducted and shared their own experiences of aving sat through a Yaga near a Homa Kunta. It was fun to hear their experiences.



Activity



To reinforce all the different names from the Ramayana story, we played a 4 corners game where each corner was a character name. The moment the teacher said the name, they had to run to the corresponding corner within 10 seconds. If they didn't reach, they were out. They were tired after running around and really did welcome the meditation part that followed. With each class, we are increasing the meditation by a few more seconds and the kids are able to sit without getting distracted.


Meditation

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

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.