Hari OM.
Dear Sunday Morning Grade 4 Parents,
We had our 4th Balavihar session on Sunday, Sep 30th. Our next class is on October 7th.
This Sunday at 9:15AM, when class started, we had 14 students in class; while we ended the class at with 16 students. This is a significant improvement from the last class and we sincerely appreciate the whole family's efforts in helping your child arrive at Balavihar on time.
Our topics for this week:
1. Reviewed Parishit Meets Kali story from Sep. 16th class
2. New for this week, we started story of how Parikshit was cursed
3. Children asked about the story of Dhurvasa and we promised to get back to it at a later time
4. There were questions about Kali Yuga and the timeline where it starts...this was part of the Grade 3 curriculum and we have several students who are new to balavihar. So, we will review this timeline in an upcoming class. The main reason for us going through these background stories is lay the foundation for the Krishna stories which along with the 24 Teachers are the main focus area for this year.
5. As home work we assigned every child to come up with one fact about Krishna. Some children were concerned that their one fact may be duplicated by someone else in the class. This is a valid concern for anyone who is not the first one we call to state their fact. So, one solution we came up with to avoid that scenario, is for that student to come up with 24 facts about Krishna. That way, even if every registered student attends the next class, one can still have a unique fact. That said, we will be happy if the children spend some time thinking about this and come to class with at least one fact about Krishna. We will all learn a lot more about Krishna this year.
Geetha Chanting: We used Swami Shantananda's video in class today. Please see prior class notes in the Teacher's Blog site referenced below for more information on resources available to help one improve their Geetha Chanting. Please encourage your child to spend some daily time practicing the verses that we're learning in class. It will help them improve their brain size; don't just take our word for it, see published research on the "sanskrit effect" here. Not only that, it will help their house, Krishna's Cowboys win more points; because we will be recording our class chanting the Geetha to earn points for our house. Based on this video, we will also receive constructive feedback from the our Vrindavan Sanskrit scholars on things we can do to help improve our pronunciation etc. All this is being done with the goal of helping your child participate in the Geetha Chanting Event that takes place in the Spring time. Look for more information on that early next year.
Balavihar Houses: 4th Grade is in the house of Krishna's Cowboys. Today, in assembly, we earned 194 points for our house with the bead game that we played. Another way for us to earn points for the house is to create a video of our class chanting the Chapter 18, starting with Verse #41; that we are all learning this year. If you can help you 4th grader with practicing the first four verses (41, 42, 43 and 44); we will work on creating a video in our next class. These verses can be found on page 21 of the Balavihar Handbook. You can also find these verses in the Geetachanting.net website.
CORD Walkathon: Register for CORD Walkathon which is on Oct 28th, Sunday 10:00 AM at Mercer County Park. East Picnic area. Note that walkathon is followed by Field Day activities. Please make sure you register for the walkathon. You can find more information about the Walkathon and register here. Yes - Please bring in all your friends and family members. $25/walker and the funds raised goes to CORD. Raffle and prizes for the most number of pledges collected and fun for the whole family. For those inclined to help, there will be several volunteer opportunities for adults. If you're interested, please reach out to us or the CORD Walkathon coordinators.
Class Blog: For a repository of past class discussions (for all Balavihar grades), we have a Chinmaya Vrindavan Teacher's Blog located here
That is all for this week. Please contact us if you have any questions or concerns.
Thank you for helping make this Chinmaya Balavihar program possible.
Sincerely,
Yamuna and Raj
Sunday AM Grade 4 Teachers
