HariOm Parents,
Welcome to the Grade 8 Sunday PM. We are excited to have your children as part of our Bala Vihar session. Our goal is to ensure the children look forward to attending these sessions every week, and actively participate in the discussions, Geeta chantings, reciting slokas, etc. We will try our best to keep the environment in the class highly interactive and hope they can grasp and apply the gist of what we plan to cover this year (Yato Dharma, Tatha Jayah - where there is Dharma, there is victory), in their day to day life.
Every week we will share a brief update on our progress in the session. Please feel free to share your feedback (send an email or call us directly) about how your children are perceiving this session, and we will try to factor that into how we approach our class.
Weekly Update
Sept 26th 2019 / 12:45 PM
Today's Activities
Opening prayer
om saha navavatu, saha nau bhunaktu, saha víryam karavavahai,
tejasvinavadhítam-astu ma vidvishavahai, Om shanti, Shanti, Shantih
Followed by starting with a few lines of Guru Stotram. Some of the children in the class know this but for the benefit of everyone, we will start practicing this every week. Please access this document for lyrics
We started the Geeta chanting verses 39-40. They kids are very fast learners and seem to be grasping the pronunciation well. For additional practice please feel free to follow this link and practice at home.
We followed this up with the introduction of a couple of new kids in the class. And then leading into a discussion on what they understood by the word Dharma and what role they have to perform given their stage in life (student / family member). This led to a good discussion around what each student understood or thought of dharma and their role: Be Kind to everyone, be a good student and focus on studies, be a good son/daughter and help family in daily chores, be a good global citizen by helping the planet & people.
Following this the children started capturing activities (Actions) they performed yesterday (Saturday) and how they categorized them as good, mundane & negative. This initiated a good discussion on how each student considered their activities (Action) as important, good and will potentially result in good in the future or not have any impact.
We concluded the topic today with another conversation on the importance of Good Action (Karma) in performing one's role (Dharma) keeping the tasks noted earlier by each student. Good Action (Karma) being one of the main theme of our curriculum this year, we explored with the students what is meant by Karma, how good actions lead to good results,etc. We will further continue this discussion in the next class, good & bad actions.
Lastly every class we plan on leaning on new name of our Pujya Gurudev Chinmayanand:
Om karma-parāyaņāya namaha
one who is engaged in action
Closing Prayers & Pledge
Next Session Agenda
Proceed with our plan of learning additional lines of Guru Stotram, Geeta Chanting version 3-4, further discussion on Karma
Reminder & Activities for home
Kindly encourage children to practice Geeta Chanting at home using the video links provided above
Parents who have not yet joined the whatsapp group please use this link to join. This way we can provide you with updates and notifications.
