Hariom parents,
A warm welcome to all of you. Below is a detailed curriculum and a high level plan for what we plan to cover this year and request your support and cooperation as well to make this learning experience even better. Most of these was covered when parents visited the class room earlier this week. For those who could not make it to the class room this attachment provides the details. Feel free to reach us if you have any questions or concerns.
Curriculum
1 Mahabharata
"The Mahabharata has molded the character and civilization of one of the most numerous of the world's people. How….By its gospel of dharma, which like a golden thread runs through all the complex movements in the epic; by its lesson that hatred breeds hatred, that covetousness and violence lead inevitably to ruin,, that the only real conquest is in the battle against one's lower nature."
- C. Rajagopalachari
Children were introduced to the Mahabharata part 1 during the 5th Grade. We will start with the quick review of the same and then will be starting an in depth discussion covering Virata Parva onwards. We will be following C. Rajagopalachari's Mahabharata book. Please encourage the children to share the stories with you and discuss the various characters and their actions. There are plenty of free videos available on Youtube and it would be great if you could watch it together at home as well.
2 India the Sacred land
Children were introduced to the Guru Parampara and some Indian saints and sages. We will further expand upon that and introduce our rich Indian heritage to the 6th graders during later part of the year.
Shlokas
We will be learning the Devi Dhyana Shloka – Sarva Managala, Mahalakshmya Ashtakam and Mahishasuramardini Stotram All of these are available in the My Prayers book.
Bhajans
We will be making sure that the children learn to sing the Jaya Jagadisha Hare Arthi and the Chinmaya Arthi this year. Apart from this, we will be teaching them some assorted small Bhajans. They have been learning Amba Parameshwari too as part of the current year curriculum.
Gita Chanting
We will be learning verses 41 - 70 in the 18th Chapter of the Bhagavad Geeta this year. Every week, Swamiji's video of two verses is telecast in class and we also review separately. The script is available in the Balavihar Handbook. Please encourage the children to practice at home and memorize the verses.
Other activities
Seva Project and Monthly Program
We will update you on the plans and the topic once we finalize this.
Recommended Books and Supplies
1 Mahabharata for children workbook – available in bookstore
2 My Prayers – green book
3 Balavihar Handbook – already distributed to the children
4 Notebook for notes and Likhitajapa
5 Pens, pencils, markers, erasers
We also request you to ensure that the youths were indian attire when they come to the class. Given that we are learning the Indian heritage it is important then come in that attire too to make the learning complete.
We will send you weekly updates on the progress and topics covered in the classroom to the email that you registered with us.
We look forward to a mutually rewarding and exciting experience in Balavihar this year with your children.
Outlined below is what we covered in the first 2 Classes so far. We will continue to provide updates on a weekly basis to help you understand what we covered so you could also engage the youths and discuss some of the learnings to review the content.
Date: Friday Sept 7th 2018
The children assembled in the assembly hall and after a brief welcome to all, the children headed to the classroom along with us. Once we were settled down in our classroom we started the class with introduction and starting prayers. We distributed the handbook to each of them and discussed the curriculum. We also discussed the need to come to the class in Indian clothes and ensuring that they bring their bag and supplies that we plan to use as part of every class. As you may have heard there is a brief power outage however the class continued as normal with the emergency lights that came in Handy. Some of the parents joined us during this session and we were happy to meet whoever could come.
We started discussion about India - The sacred Land with mapping each of the child's home town on a India map sketch and went over the boundaries of the country. It gave them a visual representation of the cities and which zone it belongs too. We also asked them to come back with a Temple in India that they have been to and a Sage or Saint they met or know off etc. Please help them with this if they have not reached you out yet.
We concluded the class with closing prayers, Chinmaya aarthi and pledge.
Date: Friday Sept 14th 2018
We started the class with introduction of some more new students, starting prayers and attendance. Some of the parents joined us in the class and we briefly discussed the curriculum and the plan for the year. We stressed the need for the youths to come to the class in traditional Indian clothes and also come to the class timely as well.
Given this past week we had Ganesh Chaturthi we discussed why this is celebrated and how this is done in various parts of India. We followed it up with a Small hand Sketch of Lord Ganesha. Each of the youths in the class did this by themselves with little guidance from US. We hope the youths brought this sketch home and shared this with you. We would like them to color the Sketch at home if possible and share it with us in the next class.
During the second half of the class we started with a review of the Adi Parva portion of Mahabharata content that was already covered in Grade 5. Hopefully it was a good refresher for most of them and a good learning for the new comers to Grade 6.
We finished the class with closing prayers and led the children to the Assembly hall for Aarthi and Pledge
