Hari Om Parents and Swamiji,
We had a very busy and packed class yesterday, along with the excitement of our first snow of the season!
We started with the opening prayers and quickly jumped on to a quick recap of the last class where we had ended with the story of Sudama and Lord Krishna's friendship, and how a friend in need is a friend indeed! We concluded letter F with a friendship bracelet bead activity which was thoroughly enjoyed by all. Our many thanks to Jayashree and Chinmaya Vrindavan for the materials.
We then moved on to alphabet G which stands for "God", and started a discussion on what is the meaning of God. The children were able to provide excellent ideas and thought provoking answers. We also did an activity where we requested all the children to close their eyes and think of 5 blessings that God has given them and then make a picture of it on construction paper. We arrived at some fabulous examples of blessings such as Robots, Drones, flowers, food etc. we also sang "Krishna Here…… Song, and substituted Krishna with other God's such as Hanuman, Sita, Rama etc. and the children enjoyed understanding the significance of God.
As the tenth to twelfth graders were coming in to assist us, we had assigned letter H to them. Three energetic ladies, Gayathri, Amolika and Sreekruthi, graced us with their presence for about 20 minutes. They first explained that the letter H stands for "Happiness". They discussed the different times when we are happy and when we becomes unhappy. And how we must always strive to stay happy in all circumstances.
And to illustrate this we played the happiness train game. The children were quite disappointed when the train's first stop was a playground but they were told to be quiet and sit and not able to play. However, they were told that even though they did not get what they wanted they should stay happy. It was difficult for the children. The next stop the train made was a Pizza Shop, however instead of Pizza they were given Roti and dhal, much to the chagrin of the little ones. However, they did eat the rotis.
The train's next destination was an amusement park, but alas, instead of a park where there would be fun rides , they ended up in a dentists office and had to open their mouths for dental exams. The final destination was Candyland-where they were provided with candies. The children enjoyed the activity and understood that happiness is a state of mind that we can achieve at any time and that it is in our hands to stay happy. Please see attached photos taken while the teacher assistants took the class.
The teacher assistants also discussed with the children various activities that we do every day that make us happy or sad and why and concluded that we give too much importance to gadgets and video games.
After the teacher assistants left we chanted the Bhagwad Gita slokhas with the help of the video streaming, and chanted some slokhas to get ready for the slokhathon.
This concluded the class and we went to the prayer hall for arthi and pledge.
Thank you and Hari Om,
Ulka, Bhargavi and Priya
Sevikas
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