Oct 27th Class Update

Hari Om Parents!

In today's class, we had one of the students demonstrate the differences and nuances in notes and scale prevalent in Carnatic music and Jazz/Blue music. He did an excellent job using saxophone as the instrument to play and demonstrate the differences.

The kids continued learning and practicing the Geetha Dhayanam shlokas with Shlokathon teacher Ms. Gayathri. They are getting very comfortable with words and exact pronunciations. The next step would be to memorize and recite without the book!
Shantha Aunty was again at the class to teach some additional meditation techniques and kids learnt a technique of meditation which increases oxygen flow to the brain area. This is in turn would increase their concentration and ability to retain more information!

We do not have BalaVihar for next 2 weeks and look forward to see you all back at BV on Nov 17. 2013. We are looking to focus on sub-topic "Architecture". It would be great if you could remind and help the kids prepare for the discussion by going over the information in the book "Awakening Indians to India" as well as looking at some genuine material on the Web.

Lastly, we would like to wish a very happy and joyous Deepavali to you and your loved ones.

Regards
Ranga & Anand ( Dharmam class Teachers)

Oct 20th Class

Hari Om Parents!

I hope you were able to attend the "Back to BalaVihar" and get good insight about the BalaVihar classes and the mission and vision of Chinmaya Mission.

The kids continued learning and practicing the Geetha Dhayanam shlokas with Shlokathon teacher Ms. Gayathri. They were introduced to the concepts of Meditation thanks to one of our volunteers Shantha Aunty.

We continued the discussion on popular dance and music forms of India.

Regards
Ranga & Anand ( Dharmam class Teachers)

Oct 6th Class Highlights

Hari Om!

Happy Navarathri to everyone. 6th Graders had the first taste of yoga with our resident yoga acharya right after the Navarathri celebrations and opening prayers in the main hall. It was great to have them warm up for the Balavihar session with some serious bending and stretching :)

I would request the parents to ensure the kids are attired with proper clothes and the yoga mat from next class so they get the maximum benefit from this 20-30 minute session. Please reach out to me if you have any questions.

We began the classroom session with opening prayers and learning the first three stanzas of the Gita Dhyanam Slokams today (Page 54 in the Slokathon book). Please try to recite along with the kids at home so they get few more reps before next session.

Due to the shortened session in the class, we could not get to discuss topic of the day - Carnatic music and Bharathanatyam. We will get into this next class. For this week we focused on Navarathri and importance of three goddesses - Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswati who are celebrated during these 9 days. Kids were asked to share what "wealth" means to them and their perspective and importance of it to them. We ended the day with a game of hangman on words related to Navarathri.
For those interested in getting notifications on Blog updates, please click "Follow" on the blog site and you will get an email alert everytime there is an update or a new post.

We will reconvene for Balavihar on Oct 20th as there is no Balavihar session next week.

Regards
Ranga

Hari Om  Parents of 2013-14 6th Grade Dharmam Balavihar class!!

Welcome to our blogspot where you'll get to review and know what takes place in the class every week.

We hope to keep the information updated on a weekly basis from now. In addition we will be using this platform to communicate upcoming events and any special activities, requests specific to Dharmam class.

We have had 3 classes so far and kids have been fantastic.

The first session (Sep 15th) was primarily focused on "Get to know each other" and playing some icebreaker games.

The second class (Sep 22nd) was based on knowing and discussing the impact of Indian leaders on their country and the world itself. We discussed leaders such as Jhansi Rani, Chandragupta Maurya, Chatrapathi Shivaji, Akbar and Mahatma Gandhiji and the values they imparted along the way. We compared and contrasted India's freedom fight with America's fight for independence from the British rule.

In our third class (Sep 29th) the topic of discussion was popular dance forms of India. The discussion focused on understanding the differences between western forms and Indian dance form and importance of expression (bhava) in addition to technique and footwork. Kids learnt a lot about Kathak from a fellow student who is pursuing Kathak as a dance student.  BBNJ volunteer Devi helped the kids learning the first set of shlokas for about 15 minutes. The topics for 6th grade are Tapovana Shatkam and Geeta Dhayanam which are included in the Shlokathon book. Please take some time and work with the kids at home.

Starting from Oct 6th, kids would participate in Yoga classes with our resident ace Yoga teacher Mytri-ji from 10am to 10:30am. Please have them dress comfortably and bring a yoga mat.

We had requested the kids to research on Bharatanatyam form of dance and Carnatic music history and heritage as prep work for Oct 6th class. Please remind them to take about 30 minutes to an hour and come prepared. We are looking for an exciting and engaging discussion on Sunday.

-- Anand and Ranga, Teachers