Apr 3, 2022 - Grade 1 (Sunday PM)

Today we started the class with our usual prayers and shlokas
We learnt about Surpanaka and her aggression towards Rama, Sita and Lakshmana. The battle between Rama and  her brothers Dooshana and Khara. We introduced the most pivotal character of Ramayana, the mighty king demon Ravana. How Surpanaka paints a wrong picture to Ravana and coaxes him into abducting Sita. How Mareecha helps in their scheme.

Kids colored the page that was relevant to todays lessons. We played 2 games that quizzed the kids on the lessons we learnt so far.    

We concluded the class with memorizing verses 47-50 Chapter 2 of BhagwadGita followed by the pledge.  

Thank You  Hari Om
Sapna ji and Yamuna ji

Mar 13, 2022 - Grade 1 (Sunday PM)

Today we started the class with our usual prayers and shlokas

We practiced verses 47-53 of the BhagwadGita. As you all know we have only 2 weeks until the recitation. Please please have your kids practice the shlokas at home

We also introduced the character of Sage Agastya in our Ramayana lessons. We talked about his greatness and power and heard and saw several stories that portray the same,

We learnt on how he helped with bringing a balance on earth when all of the residents southern part of India left to the Northern Himalayan ranges to witness the marriage of Shiva and Parvathi. The Indian subcontinent was lopsided because of this, and Sage Agastya was appointed by Lord Shiva to stay back in S.India to balance the weight. Such was his power. 

We also heard about how he brought about peace to the sages from the horrific practices of Demons Vathapi and Ilvala. And how he was able to reduce the size of the ever growing Vindhya mountains.

Kids colored the page that was relevant to todays lessons. We concluded the class with memorizing 39 and 40 verses of Chapter 2 BhagwadGita followed by the pledge.

Thank You

Hari Om

Sapna ji and Yamuna ji

 

Jan 23, 2022 - Grade 1 (Sunday PM)

Hari Om Parents

Today we covered the following

We started with Sahana Vavathu.

Kids were asked to memorize Guru Brahma last week. They did and recited on their own.

We did 4 verses of Bhagwadgita (39-42)

Kids were told to memorize as much as possible for next week

We played a video of a story on honesty. Kids enjoyed it and we discussed what role honesty can play in life

We then continued with our syllabus of Balaramayana

1. Covered King Dusheratha's distress about Rama leaving, 
2. Rama taking a pledge to go the forest,
3. Lakshmana's anger at the situation,
4. Lakshmana and  Sita's decision to accompany Rama to the forest,
5. Farewell 
6. Their journey with Sumantra upto the forest and night spent with Guha on the ganges river
7. Finally them getting on a boat and reaching the other side of the Ganges and their entry into the forest to start their 14 year long stay

Hari Om

Yamuna and Sapna Aunty

 

Jan 9, 2022 - Grade 1 (Sunday PM)

Hari  Om Parents

Happy New Year to all of you.

We started with a small game of who is going to wish Happy New Year first. Riya won the toss and she wished all of us Happy New Year.

It was very endearing to see both the kids recite Sahana Vavathu. This is their first shloka that they memorized.

We are working on Guru Brahma and Saraswathi Namasthubhyam.

We chanted the word rama as they colored through the Lesson 8 of the coloring book.

We also practiced vakrathunda with Yamuna aunty in a ganesha mask.

We learnt the stories 

1.  King Janaka announces the wedding of Rama and Sita. they all return to Ayodhya for the wedding celebrations.
   
2. The wedding
3.  news of Dusharatha to make Rama the King of Ayodhya. 
4. Manthara poisoning the ears of Kaikeyi to make Bharatha the King
5. The story behind Kaikeyi's two wishes she gets from Dusharatha and how she could use them towards making Mantharas idea come true
6. Two wishes she would ask the King  ---  Bharata becoming a King and the other to send Rama and Sita to the forest.

Homework for next week is to memorize Guru Brahma

Hari  Om Parents

Yamuna Aunty and Sapna Aunty

Nov 14, 2021 - Grade 1 (Sunday PM)

Hari Om Parents

Today we did the regular recitation of Om 3 times followed by recitation of 5 shlokas

Sahana Vavathu, Vakrathunda, Saraswathi, GururBrahma and Budhirbalam.

We summarized the learning of Ramayana so far and learnt about Sage Vishwamitra and how he came about to become a stage from being a powerful King.

We looked the following video to understand the story better

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTUB6bAJ5i4&t=57s

We played the following wordwall missing word game to practice Sahana vavathu shloka

https://wordwall.net/play/25048/592/690

It was endearing to see the kid fill up most of the words.

We did some exercises to keep ourselves active during class. 

Sapna aunty introduced Teddy to the class to add some excitement.

Thank You and Regards

Hari Om

Yamuna Aunty and Sapna Aunty.

Oct 31, 2021 - Grade 1 (Sunday PM)

Hari Om Parents

Today we did the regular recitation of Om 3 times followed by Sahana Vavathu practice.

Today we introduced a new character Sage Vishwamitra and how he came about to become a stage from being a King.

We looked the following video to understand the story better

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTUB6bAJ5i4&t=57s

On the occasion of the House Inaugural 2021 we played the wordwall game where we had to match cities, rivers, mountains to the circles on the ancient India map.

We then joined the group zoom session.

See you all next week.

 

Hari Om

Yamuna Aunty

Sapna Aunty

Oct 3, 2021 - Grade 1 (Sunday PM)

Hari Om Parents

We started the class with our usual chanting of Om three times and reciting the following Shlokas
We have given the lyrics below. We have broken them down so kids are able to read and memorize easily.

Please take a printout of all the shlokas mentioned in this post and have them readily available so they can look at them and recite in next class.

1.OM Sahana Vavatu, Sahanau Bhunaktu, Saha Viryam Karava vahai
  Tejasvi Navadi tamastu, Ma Vid vishava hai, OM Shanti Shanti Shantihi

2. Vakratunda Mahakaya Surya Koti Samaprabha |
   Nirvighnam Kuru Me Dev Sarv-Kaaryeshu Sarvadaa ||

3. Saraswati Namas tubhyam Varade Kaama-Roopini
   Vidya rambham Karishyaami Siddhir-Bhavatu Me Sadaa

4. GururBrahma GururVishnu GururDevo Maheshwaraha
   Guru Saakshaat ParaBrahma Tasmai Sri Gurave Namaha

5. Buddhir Balam Yasho Dhairyam
   Nirbhaya tvam Arogataam
   Ajaaddyam Vaak Patu tvam Cha
   Hanumat Smaran aat Bhavet

We started the class with recap of what was covered in the last class.

Introduced  Sage Vasihta's character in Ramayana. We discussed what Guru means and the importance of Guru in a disciple's life.

We played the video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-4yyE4EDtU

We reiterated the important aspects of the story followed by a game which futher strengthened the facts learnt in the video.
Kids had a wonderful time matching the balloons and popping them as they went along.

https://wordwall.net/resource/22167736/grade-1-ch-1-review

Since we were on the topic of the Guru, we introduced the Shloka

6. Om Akhanda Manadala karam Vyaptam yena Charaa charam
   Tadpadam Darshitam Yena Tasmai Sri Guruve Namaha

We introduced the bhajan

7. Khathe bhi Raam kaho
   Peethe bhi Raam kaho
   Sothe bhi Raam Kaho
   Ram Ram Ram

We sang it a couple of times.

Kids wrote the word Rama multiple times while singing the bhajans

We played the Aarti video, and read the pledge
Pledge is available on page 33 of the Handbook.

This week they were given the following homework

1. Story
Each one of the kids have to tell us the story of Ramayana they have learnt so far.
IMportant names in the story to remember

CIty - Ayodhya
Banks of the River - Sarayu
King Dusharatha
Guru Vasishta
3 wives - Kausalya, Sumitra, Kaikeyi
Four sons of King Dusheratha (3 brothers of Rama) --- Rama, Bharata, Lakshmana, Shatrughn

2. Memorize the first line of Sahana vavathu shloka
3. Memorize the bhajan Khate bhi ram kaho.

Gentle reminder we dont have class next week. We will meet again on Oct 17th.

Pranams
Yamuna and Sapna

Sept 26, 2021 - Grade 1 (Sunday PM)

Hari Om Parents

Today we did the regular recitation of Om 3 times followed by Sahana Vavathu practice.

Today we introduced a new character Sage Vishwamitra and how he came about to become a stage from being a King.

We looked the following video to understand the story better

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTUB6bAJ5i4&t=57s

On the occasion of the House Inaugural 2021 we played the wordwall game where we had to match cities, rivers, mountains to the circles on the ancient India map.

We then joined the group zoom session.

See you all next week.

 

Hari Om

Yamuna Aunty

Sapna Aunty

Sept 26, 2021 - Grade 1 (Sunday PM)

 

We started the class with 3 times of Hari Om recitation  followed by sahana vavathu shloka

We recited the 4 shlokas and had the kids follow us

Shukhlam

Saraswathi namastubhyam

Guru Brahma

Budhirbalam

  

We made the kids repeat the first two shlokas again after the first recitation so they get more familiar.

 

We explained what Bala kand of Ramayana meant and went on to describe Lord Rama and a brief introduction to the story of the Lord.

 

We started the first lesson about Ayodhya. About how life was during those days and compared it to what we have now. We spend some time on it just to make it interactive and funny to engage the kids.

 

We had them color the first page of their drawing book.

 

The kids were asked to chant the name Rama as long as they were coloring. Kids did it with a lot of enthusiasm. It was a pleasure watching them chant and color

 

We then went on to talk about the birth of Lord Rama. What kept King Dusheratha sad even though he was a powerful King and had three wives. How his Guru advises him to perform Yagna to please the fire God and so on.

 

We played a video that shows the birth of Lord Rama

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jGhrZJfVdI&t=18s

We spent some time quizzing them on the characters and the story that they had learnt so far.

We played the Chanting Primer 1 video of intro to chanting sanskrit shlokas.

https://youtu.be/HkuUCKp3BW0

 

We concluded the class with the Aarti video followed by the pledge.

 

Pranams

Sapna and Yamuna

 

 

Sept 19, 2021 - Grade 1 (Sunday PM)

 

We started the class with 3 times of Hari Om chanting  followed by the recitation of Sahana Vavathu shloka

We spoke a little bit on the shlokas that we were going to recite every week and briefly on their significance.

We recited the 4 shlokas and had the kids follow us

Shukhlam

Saraswathi namastubhyam

Guru Brahma

Budhirbalam

 

Since it was our first class we introduced ourselves.

We asked the children to talk about themselves. Their names, grades, their favorite food, games etc.

To make it more interesting we combined it with a game of rolling wheel and whose ever name the wheel stopped on had to talk about themself.

 

Since there were two festivals Ganesh Chathurthi and Janmashtami that were around the time that classes started, we talked about both the Gods and played videos that had stories of their respective births.

 

We then played games that quizzed the kids on the characters and the stories that they learnt.

 

We introduced the kids to the epic Ramayana and the main characters. We made them recite

Srirama rama ramethi shloka.

 

The following videos and games were played during the class.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5E8dVk4XGM

 

https://wordwall.net/play/21498/299/880

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFdsz-a8ce0

 

https://wordwall.net/play/9786/646/180

We joined the main zoom session where kids got to see Swamiji video on Bhagwadgita and we all attended Aarti

 

Pranams

Sapna and Yamuna

Welcome to Gr 1 - Sunday PM Session

Please look out for regular updates from 

the teachers 

soon after the session starts.