TEACHERS:  Patti, Saideepa, Thatha  Bhuvana,  Lakshmi, Ganesh, Sharanya

Last three weeks we are having our Pre-SSE classes virtually because of the Corona Virus issues. We are divided into two groups and having the classes on Saturday and Sunday. We are also doing virtual story time on Wednesdays at 5:30p.m. with all the kids. Below is the summary of each class:

March 28/29: Theme: Fear. We are scared of this virus. Patti reassured us by saying that Swami is everywhere, He is within us, He will take care of us. On top of that our parents are there to take care of us. We don’t have to be scared of anything. Every class we are chanting Gayatri three times led by Bhuvana aunty, Lakshmi aunty, or Saideepa aunty at the beginning. Disha aunty did Yoga with us for ten minutes. Patti read a book “Little Quack” where we heard how mother duck takes care of her duckling when they get scared. Saideepa aunty invited Akshara Akka to play her Veena and Vishu Anna to play his tabla while she sang ‘Jaya Guru Omkara’. Sharanya aunty did art work and showed us how to draw a scary face. 

March 21st/22nd: Theme: Listening. We are all home now. Patti asked us to be good listeners to our mom and dad. The book she read was ‘The Very Quiet Cricket’. Saideepa aunty and Lakshmi aunty taught us one English Ganesh bhajan. Sharanya aunty showed us how to draw a ladybug. We drew our own ladybug by listening to her. At the end we acted like different animals by listening to patti’s story. 

March 15th: Theme: Anger management. We are all staying home because of Corona virus. We cannot go to school, or play with our friends. Hence we may  get angry sometimes at home. Patti talked to us about this virus and we can get sick if we go out. She showed us how to calm down whenever we feel angry and asked us to talk to our mom and dad when something  bothers us. She read a book ‘Chocolate Covered Cookie Tantrum’ where we saw a mother helping her daughter when she was getting angry.  We also practiced a bhajan and did some artwork. 

Power of positive thinking

Lesson Plan:

We are introducing Swami’s teaching of WATCH. The word WATCH has an important message to convey.

WATCH means:

W – Watch your Words

A – Watch your Actions

T – Watch your Thoughts

C – Watch your Character

H – Watch your Heart

We have already discussed how we can watch our words and actions and now we are moving to watching your thoughts. This quarter we are discussing the power of thoughts and how we can develop positive thought. 

Class notes for 02/09/2020

As 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: 03/10/2020

Summary:Emotional self awareness. kindness and Empathy.

ATTENDANCE: 16

Sairam,

We started the class with 3 Om’s, prayers and meditation led by students. We reviewed last weeks life application. Last two weeks we were focusing on topics gratitude and empathy.

Last Sunday we dove deeper on the concept of Empathy.  Children shared kind act they did throughout the week.  We discussed how feeling of empathy drives the act of kindness.  Kids were split into 4 different groups, given different scenarios for which they had to put themselves in different person’s shoe and come up with an empathetic response.  

Life application: They need to journal 3 things.

1. Today I am grateful for….
2. One good act that I did today…
3. My happiness scale (pick one) : very happy,happy, neutral,sad, very sad.
4. continue eating fruits and vegetables(ABCs)…

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.

SUMMARY:  Gayatri Mantra

03/22/2020

Please find the class presentation here.

03/15/2020

Please find the class presentation here.

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.

Guest Speaker – Chetana  Kamath & Project – Women’s Shelter

ATTENDANCE:

9

Main topic:

This last week, we had a guest speaker Chetana Kamath, who is currently a med school student at UNC.   Chetana grew up in Tampa Florida, and was an active SSE student.  She discussed in an interactive presentation her experiences with the G4 class.  

This week due to the corona virus G4 teachers cancelled the cooking and serving project and instead provided pizza and cookies to the Women’s Shelter. 

Note to Parents:

Sairam Parents –

Group 4 will have our next class on April 12th then April 26th, then May 2nd.  We will be moving to a virtual class until the end of the term.

Jai Sai Ram!

-Group 4 Gurus