Prayers:

3 Oms, Gayatri, Ganapati Prarthana

Main topics:  Today Patti talked to us about not wasting food and water. She told us that food makes us to grow strong and healthy. We should remember not to waste food. She reminded us to be thankful to our parents especially to our mom for cooking our food everyday. Sometimes we are hesitant to try new food which we haven’t eaten before. Instead of denying she asked us to try a little. She also told us not to waste water. She reminded us to turn the water off during brushing our teeth, not to take long shower. Patti read a book: Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss. Today Thatha did experiments with Pencils and Water. He filled the glass with water. Dropped the pencil in the glass. We saw how the shape of a pencil change inside the water, letters in the pencil looks bigger in side the water.  Anjana aunty came to the class to practice the song ‘Joy of Sai’ which we will be singing for Swami’s birthday. 

Life application/Home work:   Help your parents in cooking, setting up the table for dinner.

Note to Parents:    (from parents’ discussion)  

Prayers:

We started the class with 3 om’s followed by multi-faith prayers.

Go Green talk: 

We gave children a brief overview on the Go Green initiative and how we are all gearing up to minimize and reduce the use of plastic and styrofoam in our day to day life. We suggested that they can use  reusable metal straws instead of plastic ones and metal spoons and forks instead of plastic spoons and forks.The tip of the month for parents is – to use reusable shopping bags for grocery shopping.

We also gave them a heads up to bring their own water bottles on Swami’s birthday celebration day.

Main Topic: Devotion

In the final segment on devotion we wanted to put it gently to the kids that things don’t always turn out to be the way we want them to be. Sometimes it seems as though our prayers are not being answered even after repeated requests to God. We told them that everything happens for a reason and every thing that happens is for our own good. To bring home the point, we narrated  a story of a King and his Minister. In the story the king looses his finger while hunting a leopard, the minister advises him not to worry because it happened for good. The king gets furious and orders to send the minister to prison. The minister continues to believe that his going to prison is also good for him. The next time around when the king goes for hunting he is captured by tribal people only to be given as a human sacrifice for their gods. Just about then someone among the tribe realizes that the king doesn’t have a finger and that he is defective and hence is unfit for sacrifice. He is then released and set free. The king then realizes that the minister’s word came true, loosing his finger in reality saved his life. He then asks the minister how being in prison turned out to be good for him. The minister says that had he not been in prison he would have accompanied the king for hunting, both of them would have been captured by the tribe,  the king since deemed unfit for sacrifice would have been set free but the tribal people would have then picked him up instead for sacrifice, and he wouldn’t have been alive today.

After an interactive discussion we concluded that it is during these uncertain times we need to hold on to faith even more strongly and keep our spirits high. We elaborated that it is during these times God is even more close to us, taking care of us because he knows that we can be sensitive and can feel sad and upset.

QUIZ:

Then it was time for the long anticipated quiz.  Children enjoy this activity a lot and are always on their toes to come up with correct answers to make their team win. We divided the class into two teams, team Faith led by boys and team Devotion led by girls. We asked them a total of ten questions each on topics essentially from everything we have covered so far. And guess what our children knew the answers for every question, mind you some of them were tricky and needed to be thought through before answering. As teachers we are very impressed and proud of them. And it was a TIE! 

If any of the parents are interested to have a look at the quiz questions, we are happy to send you the file.

Song practice:

Then Anjana aunty led the songs practice session,  the songs children will be singing for swami’s birth day.

Garland project:

Our garland project is still in the making, but it began to take shape and we will take it up and finish it in the next class. A big thank you to all the parents for helping the kids with the cards.

Life application/Home work:

Please continue to encourage your child to write in homework  journals everyday. It is not mandatory but purely on the interests of the children. If anything it will only help them to be sincere, honest, punctual, responsible, thoughtful and creative, when they do the home work. We can say this with confidence only because we have seen it happen in front of our eyes with the children.  In the beginning when we started the concept of faith and love for God was rudimentary and so are their journal listings, but as we grew into the concept we believe that the children attained certain amount of clarity on the topic and so we expect that, as much as they can, children will be more specific and a bit more clear as to how faith in God shapes their everyday life. We talked to them extensively on how they can be specific in their writing. You might think  this is asking a lot out of them but we might be up for a surprise as to what potential they have in them. We as parents  can give them a nudge and casually ask them as how was their day like and if there was any instance where they remembered God and felt good. This way we can facilitate their thinking process, may be give some hints and clues along the way as to how to write . They are all doing a good job but some kids need guidance.

Note to Parents: We’ve told the kids to tell their parents the Go Green tip for the month, ask them to see what they have to say and what they have learnt about Go Green.

Remind the kids about their daily journal/homework. We have three weeks before we convene for the next regular class  on Dec 2nd.

CLASS DATE: 10/21/2018 and 10/28/2018

Summary: Unity of faith 

ATTENDANCE: 18/20

Last 2 weeks we have talking about the new faith 

ISLAM.

This coming week November 4th will be a field trip to Raleigh Mosque.        

808 Atwater street

Raleigh, NC 27607 

with students, parents and teachers.

10/21/18

Class started with 3 oms

3 Gayathri

Meditation.

Bhajan practice

We had a great pleasure to have guest speaker, Sameena Parveen to come and share a short presentation to class regarding Islam.

Students enjoyed the class and at the end of the presentation. Of course our students had a very good questions to ask and get the answers too.

Here are some of the Amazing things we learnt:

“Allah “  means submission or surrender to God.

Salaam : Peace

Holy book : Qur’an 

Prophet Mohammed is the last prophet of Islam.

 5 pillars of Islam.

1. Faith ( Shahadah)

2. Prayer( Salah)

3. Fasting ( Sawm)

4. Charity( Zakah)

5. Piligrimage ( Hajj)

Speaker also talked about the importance of the Prayer:

They pray 5 times a day.

Praying is a way to connect with God and give thanks to God.

10 Teachings of Prophet Mohammed.

1. Brotherhood of man

2. Be grateful for your creator.

3. Do not find faults in others.

4.Good be rewarded for good intention.

5. Give up arguments.

6.Respect your parents. Paradise lies under the feet of the MOTHER.

7.cleanliness is next to Godleness.

8. Always have Patience.

9. Have no EGO

10.Have control over your tongue.

Very awareness oriented class, so our students will be aware to be respectful towards their friends faith in school and the places they go to extra curricular activities.

it was pleasure to have a speaker and she did an awesome job.

10/28/18 class

Started with 3 oms

3 Gayathri.

Meditation.

Bhajan practice. We learned a new unison song “Rama Neela Megha Shyama.” that students will be singing for Swami’s birthday on Nov 18 th .

Went over the life application of last week class to honor the mother.

Also went over the awareness they got from last class presentation.

Prayer: this sunday we learnt Islam prayer and its meaning.

ACTIVITY:

Balloon Activity:

Everybody got a chance to flow the balloon with the air of course and tie it.

What is the significance of this balloon and air?

Students were are scientific about it. Which was good.

students were also got to know the spirituality about the balloon too.

The air inside the balloon and the outside the balloon is same.

That signifies God inside the ballon and outside the balloon is same.

Swami’s Quote:

God is one.  God is all pervasive. All peace and all powerful.

Heaven lies under the feet of your Mother.

Life application.

Continue respecting your MOTHER AND FATHER.

Please write down atleast 3 things that you practiced this week in your notebook. we will check the homework when we meet  this Sunday.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION TO PARENTS:

1. We would like all the students to be on time by 3.25pm we are staring 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 while 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.

Guest Speaker – Brother Ravi Mariwalla

Prayers:

Beginning prayers led by students. We chant multi faith prayers beginning of each class to show all regions teach same.

Link to multi faith prayers with meaning: http://sairegion3.org/multi-faith-prayers/

Main topic:

This week Group 3 and Group 4  students had the opportunity to listen to guest speaker, Brother Ravi Mariwalla speak about his experiences with Swami.

Note to Parents:

Sairam Parents –

We will not have SSE the following weeks. Both Global Akhanda bhajan and Swami’s birthday are Go-Green events. Students are highly encouraged to follow go-green tips by bringing their own water bottles.

Nov. 11th – Akanda Bhajans

Nov. 18th – Swami’s Birthday Program

Nov. 25th – Thanksgiving Break

With that we conclude Quarter1 and looking forward to start of Swami-filled 2nd Quarter on Dec 2nd.

Jai Sairam

SSE Group 2 teachers

——————————————————————————————

Guest Speaker – Brother Ravi Mariwalla

Main topic:

This week Group 4 students had the opportunity to listen to guest speaker, Brother Ravi Mariwalla speak about his experiences with Swami.

During the Week:

Conscious practice of dedicating any and all tasks to Swami.

Note to Parents:

Sairam Parents –

We will not have SSE the following weeks…

Nov. 11th – Akanda Bhajans

Nov. 18th – Swami’s Birthday Program

Nov. 25th – Thanksgiving Break

——————————————————————————————

We encourage parents and students to continue to discuss the topic of devotion throughout the week at home and consciously practice as a family.

We ask Swami to guide us all as we contemplate on and practice devotion.

Jai Sai Ram!

-Group 4 Gurus