TEACHERS: Section 1: Patti, Saideepa, Sharanya, Thatha  

Section 2: Patti,  Bhuvana, Lakshmi, Ganesh

Today our lesson plan was to ‘Help the environment to keep it clean’ Today patti talked to us about Recycle, Reuse and Reduce. Today we learnt how recycling helps to reduce the trash and what are all the things we can recycle. Patti told us to share our toys that we don’t play anymore and the clothes that has become small for us. We can give those to less fortunate people instead of throwing them in the garbage. We can use old magazines for cutting and glueing instead of regular paper. She asked us not to use paper products for food and plastic bottles for water. Instead we can use reusable plates, bowls like we use for our snack in the class. She was very proud of us that we bring reusable water bottles every week to our class. She asked us to remind our parents to take reusable bags for shopping instead of plastic bags. Rest of the time we practiced our bhajans, and did art work. 

Today we missed lots of our friends from the class because of the long weekend and some are sick. 

Note to Parents from parents discussion group:  Continue to allow your child to make many choices this week. Try to practice at least 1 of the parenting techniques to influence your child to make good decisions.

Showing kindness in our actions

Lesson Plan:

Started with 3 om’s and prayers .

We did guided mediation for a few minutes based on the steps of light meditation

The kids were divided into groups and asked to come up with skits to show how they practised kindness in their lives. They acted out various scenarios at school and in the playground where they demonstrated kind behaviour. They also discussed what they understood by showing kindness and tried to defferentiate between kindness and helping at home which is a responsibility.

Class notes for 02/09/2020

A part of doing good deeds we discussed how we can show kindness to the environment by conserving water, electricity, food and avoiding pollution. 

We shared stories from Swami’s life of how Swami showed kindness . How he stopped rooster fights in the village, and stopped mistreating animals for races. How Swami asked a hunter to shoot only with the camera and How Swami used to carry water for his family and neighbors.

As part of watching your actions we are continuing the homework this week of using kind words and doing kind actions. We have also added not wasting food, water or electricity to our homework.

Class notes for 1/19/2020

The kids did an experiment in class using baloons to demonstrate how every action has an equal and opposite reaction. They then came up with common actions where we see equal and opposite reaction like walking and swimming.

Class notes for 1/12/2020

We watched a video in class on how echo resonates whatever you say. If we say good, the echo also returns good words and angry words return angry words. 

We also built a boomerang in class to see how it comes back to us when we throw it. We discussed how just like the boomerang comes back to us, our actions also come back to us. So we should be watchful of our actions.

We ended the class learning the bhajan Govinda Krishna Jai

Homework : Parents please continue to encourage your children to mark their journal every day if they have used Kind Words and did Kind Actions.

CLASS DATE: 02/16/2020

Summary:Emotional self awareness. kindness and Empathy.

ATTENDANCE: 12

Sairam,

We started the class with 3 Om’s, prayers and meditation led by students. We reviewed last weeks life application. We were working on responding to the situations instead of reacting.

In class we talked about Swami and Mother Easwaramma. 

What is Easwaramma Day. Why is it celebrated?

Also, we discussed little about Swami’s childhood days,how Swami used to help His parents. How He was an Ideal son.

https://media.radiosai.org/journals/vol_12/01AUG14/RADIOSAI-HIS_STORY_COMIC-part-08.htm

Also, discussed about Mother Easwaramma’s 3 noble wishes and how Swami fulfilled those wishes. We saw and discussed about the  following 2 videos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLF_wIvjAI8

Life application: They need to journal 3 things.

1. Today I am grateful for….
2. One awesome thing happened today was………
3. My happiness scale (pick one) : very happy,happy, neutral,sad, very sad.

 4. continue doing kind acts and  continue responding to the situations instead of reacting. 

IMPORTANT INFORMATION TO PARENTS:

1. We would like all the students to be on time by 3.25pm we are staritng the class by 3.30pm.

Class room door closes at 3.30pm.

If any students come late they have to wait outside the door till we finish prayers and meditation.

2. As a parent your responsibility to check the home work ( life application ) which we give them to follow through the week.

Once you as a parent commit to the follow up with your kids the results are impactful.

3. Treat this spiritual learning as a beautiful foundation to your kids who are the future generations of leaders.

Swami has given us the opportunity to be the part of this huge responsibility. Let’s stand up to build this great future leaders.

02/16/20

After invoking prayers, Samhitha gave a small talk about her experiences visiting Puttaparthi. Continuing on the topic of Gayatri mantra from last week, we delved on the meaning of the word “Mantra”, definition of Gayatri mantra, meaning of each syllable then overall general meaning of this mantra. With the meaning in mind, we chanted it 3 times as group . Then we watched a video on effect of Vibration, frequency and energy on matter (physical objects) . (Video link here) How energy, vibration produced from chanting Gayatri affects our body and sorroundings (picture). Then we discussed on the benefits of chanting this sacred mantra. We observed that it sharpens our intellect, gives protection, confers world peace, gives strength to conquer of internal enemies). Finally we watched a video (link here) by primary school students on Gayatri mantra followed by short discussion. Please find the class presentation here. Sairam.

02/09/20

02/02/2020

After the invoking prayers, we started with review of what was discussed in last class.

We continued on the topic “6 -internal enemies”. We watched 3 videos related to internal enemies “greed”, “jealous” and “anger”.  Below are the links to those videos. After each video we discussed and reflected on how it relates to our daily lives.

Video on Greed

Video on Jealosy

Anger in sports 

Then we concluded the class on how we can conquer these enemies as told by Swami.

Desire for God alone; Get angry for not able to connect him more; Get greedy for his guidance and love; Attach to his form; Be proud that God is there to protect and guide you; Feel jealous (and get inspired) of others those who are showered with God’s love;

01/26/20 

Sairam
After the invoking prayers, we started with a question we had asked towards the end of last class.

In the year 2020, as MLK Jr, what would you like to change in the world? What is the root cause of the problem that you would like to address?
We observed that the problems children stated(like climate change, discrimination etc) raised from 6 internal enemies. i.e. Desire, anger, Greed, attachment, pride, jealousy.

All the children are divided into 6 groups, each group representing one internal enemy.

Each group is asked to discuss and present on the following questions.

a. How do you see this form as enemy in you.
b. How does it effect you (Spiritually – drag you down; materially – slows you down)?
c. How to overcome it?
d. Any story. (Personal or mythological or contemporary)

Below are the responses.

1st enemy – Desire
Focus on eliminating bad desire
1. When we want things that we don’t need it becomes our enemy
2. It can cause us to do negative things to fulfill our desire
3. By asking yourself if you actually need the thing you desire
4. Napoleon: for desire of increasing empire, caused him to be exiled from France

2nd Enemy – Anger

1. Make you act before you think.
2. Reasoning is colluded.
3. Makes relationships go bad.
4. Direct anger in right channel.

3 Enemy – Greed
1 you put yourself first
2 you don’t spend money well
3 you can limit yourself
4 King Midas: King of gold

4th Enemy – Attachment
1. Leads to sorrow grief or violence
2. It can make you do wrong things which you don’t intend to do.
3. Ceiling on desires; use caution with objects and people.
5th Enemy – Pride:
1. When people say things and you feel inferior to others.
2. It makes you feel better than others and could make others not like you.
3. Humble yourself, ground yourself, and offer everything you do to Swami.
4. The lion king: Scar got prideful of having the roar, and believed that he should be kind so he killed mufasa. But in the end Simba killed him.

6th Enemy.. Jealousy/Envy
1. Since attachment sends out negative feelings, it associates with enemies, (negative)
2. It disturbs your internal peace, and affects your goal.
Also the root cause for other “enemies”
3. We can take it in a positive way, for eg. Take it as an inspiration
4. People get jealous of Hype beasts, and want to get what they have (for eg. Airpods pro, Gucci shoes etc.)

01/19/20 

1. Invoked Sarva dharma prayers.
2. Students who went to Puttaparthi during holidays (Prem/Raj/Shivani) shared the experience of their trip. Here are the best things they observed in Puttaparthi.

 a. Super-Speciality hospital is truly a temple of healing.
 b. Shared a story of a poor teenage girl who was operated for free for tumor on her face.
c. Magnificence of the Music college.
d. Simple living of a professor living inside the ashram.
e. How wonderful the Chaitanya Jyothi museum was.

3. Social Conformity – revisited – getting out of negative effect – Story of a swami’s classmate at Uravakonda.
 (Crocodile Jaws – From Sanathana Sarathhi Dec 1977)
4. Short discussion on the story.

Note to Parents:

One practice to take up for unity of thought word & deed is to ask them to understand the meaning of the songs they are singing/playing. We will practice this as a class for upcoming bhajan opportunities our class gets.

Seva Project – Women’s Shelter

ATTENDANCE:

8

Main topic:

This week, G4 baked and served breakfast at the Women’s Shelter in Raleigh. 8 G4 kids prepared the breakfast of Pumpkin bread, croissants, fruit, yogurt/granola and orange juice at the Women’s Shelter.  

Note to Parents:

Sairam Parents –

Group 4 will have the next class on Sunday, March 8th. Our next Seva Activities are dinner service at the Women’s Shelter on March 14th and Habitat for Humanity on March 14th as well.

Jai Sai Ram!

-Group 4 Gurus