Our first test of the year and a birthday to celebrate...

The previous class turned out to be a very productive one!

We practiced reciting the daily prayers - Dhyaana Shloka - Om Sahanavavatu (pg 9) and the daily prayers (Karaagre Vasate, Vakratunda, Saraswati Namastubhyam, Bramhaarpanam, Shubham Karoti, Kara Charana - pages 14-17 of the My Prayer Book).


We had a test of reciting the first five verses  of the Guru Sthothram and both Sathvik and Raaghav did an awesome job of it. They got rewarded for the same and were pretty excited about it :)

We have completed the Guru Sthothram. In the coming weeks I'll be sending in notifications for preparing a few verses at a time for testing and soon the kids will be comfortable reciting the whole Guru Sthothram.We also finished learning the bhajan - Bala Gopala (My Prayers Book - pg 167) and practiced the bhajan Atma Nivasi Ram (pg 209-210).

In Ramayana, after a short review of how Ravana tricked Sita into crossing the Lakshman Rekha and dragged her off in his chariot. Her shouts for help drew the attention of Jatayu who came to her defense, but after struggling valiantly, his wings were cut off by Ravana who proceeded to carry Sita away to Lanka. All along the way Sita drops her flower garlands and jewellery, in the hope that the trail will lead Rama to her. In Lanka, Ravana tries his best to convince Sita to marry him and entices her with all his wealth, but when she scorns him, he locks her up in Ashokavana with ghastly rakshasis as guards and gives her a year's time to agree to his wishes or suffer the consequences. When Rama and Lakshmana returned to the ashrama and realized that Sita was missing, they got worried and upset and started looking for her. We learn of how Rama is initially angry with Lakshmana for not listening to him and also so upset that he decides to destroy the earth as he feels life without Sita is not worth living. Lakshmana manages to calm Rama down and make him see reason, that innocents should not have to suffer for the evils done by rakshasas, but instead they should look for Sita and punish the evil doer. As they start their search, they find the fallen flowers from Sita's garland and reach Jatayu, who is just holding on to his last breath to convey the message to Rama that Sita has been abducted by Ravana and taken to Lanka. After conveying the message, Jatayu passes away. 

We continued with the next line of consonant writing in Sanskrit. Since we had just half the class in attendance I'll be repeating the same next class.

They also practiced writing their names in Sanskrit. It involved using colored markers and they loved that they could now write their names in a whole new language!

It was Sathvik's birthday and we wished him while he distributed muffins.

We concluded the class as usual with Om Poorna Madah and Sarve Bhavanthu. 

See you at the next class. Please be sure to bring your folders along with the map of India.