Hari OM Parents,
We are very happy to welcome your children into the 3rd grade Bala Bhagavatam class. We had a great session last Friday. We started off with 3 OMs and Sahana Vavatu and Vakratunda Mahakaya. Then we did the Daily prayers (My Prayers pg 11) briefly talking about when to say each everyday - and when we talked about Gange cha Yamune Chaiva we discussed about the Holy rivers of India. A few of them seem to be already familiar with the Daily Prayers but for the benefit of the rest of the class we will make them repeat after us for a few more weeks.
After Attendance, we had a fun icebreaker game where people had to be attentive and when the ball was thrown to them had to catch it and introduce and say a few things about themselves. We learnt a lot of interesting facts about the kids including who is doublejointed and who broke their arm and had people sign their cast and whose brothers were in college and had their own house and about mothers who were very spiritual and who were the older ones in the two pairs of twins we have in class and what sport or other activity each of them did🙂 We then had a random quiz to find out who had all been listening properly!
For the first few weeks of this year we are going to focus on the Art of Listening and we will have a lot of games and activities to help us improve in this area! 🙂
We then taught them a small Vinayaka Bhajan - we sang it in three different speeds clapping our hands to the rhythm. We have given them the printouts of this along with the Handbook for this year. We will continue practicing this in the next class.
After that we told them the story of 'Birth of Ganesh'. When asked who was Lord Shiva's wife, one boy replied - 'First it was Sati, now it is Parvati'!! Smart kids 🙂 We told about how Parvati Devi was having a long bath and to guard the door created a small boy from the turmeric powder scraped from her body. Then Lord Shiva tried to enter and the boy stopped Him and Lord Shiva killed him. Parvati became very angry and was about to destroy the world when Lord Brahma pleaded with Her to stop - She then put two conditions - one, the boy must be restored to life and the other that He must be offered worship before anyone else. And then Lord Shiva orders Brahma to bring the head of the first creature that he comes across lying with its head to the North and He brings back the head of an elephant and Lord Shiva places it on the body and brings the boy back to life and that is how Ganesha got His elephant head.
We discussed about how big Ganesha's ears are and that is to listen better. We also have two ears and one mouth - listen more and talk less 🙂
We then gave them a coloring activity to do - connect the Dots Ganesha. After that it was time for Arthi and we lined up and left for the temple hall. Please note that class is over only after Arthi at 8.45pm. Children will not be dismissed from the class but from the temple hall only. Occasionally if it is required to pick them up earlier please inform us before.
When we were handing out the coloring sheet we insisted that they take with the right hand since that is what is encouraged in our culture - we always give and take with right hand! And one of the kids wanted to know what was wrong with the left hand! We said nothing is wrong but in India we use the left hand for other business 🙂 They understood! Maybe there's a better explanation - we will check and get back to the kids or if any of you know please share as well! 🙂
We request all parents to buy the My Prayers Book and Bala Bhagavatam book for the kids from the bookstore if they don't already have it.
We have formed a Whatsapp group for easy communication. Request all parents to join using this link - https://chat.whatsapp.com/FpealiQWbOkDTpiYDCYnA2
We will see you all next Friday.
Thanks & Regards
Jayashree Vedamurthy & Sujatha Iyer
Jayashree Vedamurthy & Sujatha Iyer
