May

May 17

We commenced the class with 3 Oms. We chanted the shlokas. Almost all the children shared their drawings, paintings and items made with blocks. We have learnt many things during the year. Looking forward to seeing all the children next year for Dharma 3. My only instruction for the summer is to chant the shlokas at least once a week. Stay safe and have a wonderful summer..🙏🙏

May 10

We started the class with 3 Oms and chanted the shlokas. We discussed how the children are celebrating Mother's Day. For last week's homework, many children shared examples of sharing, helping and controlling anger. We went over the story of Ganesha and Parvati of Ahimsa. We also went over the story of how Ganesha and Karthikeya raced to get the Mango. I also held a quiz about many Gods, Goddesses, festivals and Ramayana. I am very proud of all these kids. They all had the answers ready. The homework for next week is to share a work of any art... drawing, painting or any other artwork. Next Week would be the last class for this year. We concluded the class with 3 Oms.

May 3

We started the class with 3 Oms and we chanted the shlokas. We then discussed the homework from last week. the kids shared many activities they had done last week, decorating the house, baking a cake, doing gardening etc. We the went over the story of king Pariksheet . In the story we saw how both king Pariksheet and Rishi Shringi did not control their anger and did wrong things. we discussed different ways to control our angry feelings like taking deep breaths, counting etc. We also went over the story of the greedy traveler. In his greed, the traveler did not think properly and went near the tiger for the golden bangle and got eaten up. The opposite of being greedy is sharing. The 2 home work for the week are 1) come up with examples of how they either controlled their feelings of anger or saw someone else do the same 2) any example of how the kids practiced daana or sharing.

April

April 26

We started the class with 3 Oms. We then chanted the shlokas. We discussed the homework from last week. Many kids shared examples of forgiveness. A few kids also shared how much time it took for them to read pages 86 and 87. I reinstated last week's class that the children should practice meditation daily to improve the strength of their minds during summer. As we are finished with the curriculum for the year last week, we went over the story of Prahalad. We discussed the boon of Brahma to Hiranyakashipu and how Narasimha killed the evil King and satisfy the boon . We also talked about Hollika and how everyone celebrates Holi. The homework for next week is to come with examples of the activity done during the week to pass time productively .

April 19

We started the class today with 3 Oms and chanted the morning shlokas. We covered alphabets X,Y and Z Sanskrit does not have alphabet X . We saw alphabet Ksha for kshama means forgiveness. We saw the story of how Vishnu forgave and massaged Rishi Brighu's feet, when Brighu kicked him in the chest. We also saw the story of how Rama forgave Kaikayee. We covered Y for yoga.Doing yoga regularly strengthens our minds. Y for yagnya a form of puja where a fire is lit in the Kunda and various things are poured into the fire while chanting the mantras.Agni Deva the god of fire will deliver whatever is poured in the fire to the Gods like a postman. Z is for sleep. We should go to bed on time so that we can get up on time. Homework for the week 1. Come up with an example of performing forgiveness.

2. Read pages 86 and 87 and note down the time it took to read these 2 pages.

April 12

Today we started the class with chanting the shlokas . We covered alphabets V and W. V for Vedas. Vedas are books written by Bhagvan Brahma which teach us how to live , about music etc. V for Vishnu - Bhagavan Vishnu has 4 hands and has taken 10 avatars. W for Work. We discussed the story of Varadaraja who was unable to understand his lessons. On seeing the mark made by the soft rope on the hard stone wall of the well, Varadaraja decided to work hard on his lessons. He became a famous Sanskrit scholar. W for Worship. There are different ways to worship God.. doing puja, yagnya, japa etc. However if we do not have time to do puja, we should do all our activities thinking of God and our work will become worship. We saw the story of Pundalika who took good care of his parents in the later part of the story. He was so devoted to his parents that he asked Lord Krishna to wait on a brick till he his father went to sleep. Krishna was so happy with Pundalika's seva to his parents that he granted him a boon. Pundalika's boon was to have Krishna with him always. Krishna then turned into a murti which is now worshiped as Vithala in Pandarpur. We then talked about a story about telling lies. Sometimes telling lies looks attractive like a candy but is really an alum stone which looks like a candy. We also talked about the story of a Monkey who decided to do a fast and japa all night but thought only of food and in the end did not do any japa or fasting. The homework for this week is for the kids to come up with an example of how they did an act of seva to either of the parents or grandparents.

April 5

Today we chanted the shlokas from the assembly presentation. We covered alphabets T and U. We learnt about Tilak- the different marks applied on the forehead during the worship of the different Bhagawan. We also talked about different Teerthas or Holy places visited by Hindus. U for Uma - Uma is another name for Parvathy. U for utsav. Utsav means festivals which are celebrated by the Hindus. We also shared a story of the pigeons who were able to save their lives by staying united. Similarly we all should be united and follow the safety measures of washing our hands and social distancing to help with stopping the spread of the Covid virus. The other story that was discussed was how Arjuna concentrated just on the eye of the bird when his teacher was testing his bow and arrow skills. Similarly we all should concentrate to learn our lessons during the elearnig at schools. We ended the class with a session of hangman's game and three Oms. No homework for this week.

Dharma 2 Presentation

Pictures below - for videos from presentation, click here

March

March 15

Alphabet R Rama. We had a small quiz on various facts of Ramayana.

We have 2 homeworks..

1 color the picture on page 71

2. To see how far you can jump

March 8

We covered Quiet for Q and Respect and Rishi for R. Quiet: We discussed how we should not talk too much and the story of the tortoise who died because he could not keep quiet. We had an experiment of keeping quiet for an entire minute. All of the children were able to keep quiet though with some difficulty. We discussed how to show respect to elders by obeying them. We had a game of guess who ? Please ask your children which God/Godess/'Bad Asura' they got to guess and what clues they gave to help the person guessing.

January

January 19

We covered four words beginning with K- Karma, Krodha, Krishna and Kartikeya. We heard the story of Parikshit and discussed anger and what to do if you are angry.

We practiced shlokas and children practiced their class presentation lines.

Homework was to practice shlokas and presentation lines.

January 5

Today we had meditation class. We started the class by asking the students a couple of questions about their meditation experience. Then we discussed what makes an awesome meditator specially being a good listener, talking to the speaker, raise your hand if you want to say something, and keep your voices quiet.

The teacher told a story about a samurai and tea master, showing how to practice focus. After the story we did a cup exercise to see how focused you have to be to not make the cup fall off your head in 50 seconds, and continued with a few more exercises to teach focus and meditation.

Homework: Meditate everyday

November

November 24

Today in class we went over the letter H. We talked about Hinduism, Hanuman, Humility, and Holi. For homework talk to your child about the story of Hanuman flying to Lanka, and his role in the Ramayana. Also remember to try and practice the shlokas we learnt in class.

Have a Great Thanksgiving!!

November 17

Today in class we went over the letter G for Gita, Ganesha and Ganga. We looked at a picture of Ganesha and talked about what each part symbolised.

Homework for this week is children ask their parents if they have a copy of the Bhagavad Gita at their home and to take darshan of the book.

Please practice the shlokas on page 93.

September

September 29

Namaste Parents,

This week the kids finished up learning words starting with the letter A and we started B. For A, the students learnt that an avant-garde is the coming down of Bhagwan to be with us so he can defeat evil. We also learnt about the difference between himsa and ahimsa. For B, we learned Bhagavan. They also talked about Lord Brahma is the creator of the universe. He also gave us the four vedas (Rig, Yakut, Sama and Atharva). Please review the shloka that starts as “Sarve Mangala Mangalye...” as we started that in class.

Thank You!