Amrutham Class----February 1st!!!

Hari Om parents

Thank you for your commitment to Bal Vihar for bringing your children on regular basis. Children that attend regularly and participates tends to learn efficiently and effortless-y.

We had slightly distracted class either due to the breaks in between due to the snow or the children missing the class. We still managed to cover our learning plan for the day. Threw in some jumping jacks and deep breathing yoga to wake them up a bit.

As always we started our class with 3 Om's. (We also learned how to write Om and the meaning of saying Om--Oh Lord, morning day and night, I love YOU) We often tell our children, our parents through out the day how much we love them, but tend to forget to show the love and gratitude to God.

We did opening shloka..."Sahana vavatu....."

We called upon Ganesha to help remove any obstacles from our learning for the day. We recited the shloka "Vakratunda mahakay......."

Once we were focused and ready to learn we called upon Saraswati maa to gives us knowledge and help us learn. We recited the shloka "Saraswati namastubhyam....."

Today we revised and talked more on Ganesha's daddy---Lord Shiva!!!!

He lives on a Kailash mountain and sits on leopard skin "seat". He has 4 hands and carries Kamandal, Trishul, Damru and lotus. He wears a "mala" made of Rudraksh. River ganga flows from his head and there is crescent moon on his head. He has snake/s around his neck and his neck is blue in color. His vehicle is Nandi the bell (bull)

He is also referred as Natrajan. When he gets angry he does a special form of dance--"Tandav" (Anushri also commented that when he gets angry, he also opens his third eye-----Awesome work, Anushri)

There is a special way to bathe our gods. I explained in a way they can comprehend. We get in the shower, get wet, put soap and then rinse the soap off before we put our clothes, lotion etc on. Similarly, we wash the Shiv-ling with water first, put panchamrat (Sugar, milk, yogurt, honey, and ghee), rinse with water and then put bili-patra, flowers to worship Lord Shiva. We also learned two shlokas to call and ask for his blessings:

"Om namah shivay"

"Om Tryambakam Yajamahe
Sugandhim Pushtivardhanam
Urvarukamiva Bandhanan
Mrityor Mukshiya Maamritat"

Discussed 3 names of Lord Shiva:
Kailashnath
Bholenath
Natarajan

We ate our snack (gold fish and water) and did bathroom rounds. 

We ended our class with closing prayers "Om purna midah....."

Few reminders:

•  Please continue to recite shlokas with your children. When we introduce a new shloka to the class we recite each shlokas for 5 times.
• Continue to ask your children about their class lessons on your way home to emphasize the learning process.
• If you didnt sign up for snack rotation, please see me before or after class to do so. 
• Some of the children in our class are GREAT at reciting shloka/s and we would highly recommend to sign them up for Shlokathon. Please ask Dhruti or me for more information on it and we will guide you in the right direction.

Next class is on February 8th.....See you then!!!! 

Meena Arvind