Morning Prayers Recited:
• Om Saha naavatu (My Prayers, page 6)
• Karagre Vaasate (My Prayers, page 43)
• Sarasvati Namastubhyam (My Prayers, page 44)
• Guru Brahma (My Prayers, page 9, third shloka)
Vedic Chanting:
• Praarthanaa with Panditji. (Chinmaya Book of Vedic Chants, page 3)
• Medha Sukhtam with Panditji. (Chinmaya Book of Vedic Chants, page 35)
Bhajans: None
Storytime with Swamiji: Swamiji continued showing a video on Druv.
Art Projects: Started designing our animals in felt, Lord Ganesha made out of Modelling Clay and Lord Ganesha Beaded Buddy (for backpacks).
Shaanti Circle Discussion: Seeing that we are Day 1 in Week 5, we decided to try our "Time and Pebble" Game for only 3 minutes -- with the goal of increasing our focus to five minutes by Friday. We were a little sluggish this morning ... guess we can call it "Monday Morning Blues" :-) The challenge is on for us to top last week's highest score -- 4 total minutes of silence with almost 100% accuracy in counting the pebbles!
We are welcoming quite a few new campers this week -- and are delighted to have them join us with our learning and fun! This afternoon, we went around the circle and introduced ourselves, answering some of our famous Jelly Bean questions. We have lots of interesting talent in the camp this week -- one of our campers plays oodles of instruments and has offered to bring in his guitar and play us a couple of songs. We're definitely looking forward to it!
Today was one of those "off schedule kinda" days -- so we didn't get a chance to discuss some of our favorite topics (i.e., ahimsa, the Chinmaya Pledge, Truth, etc.) However, we all agreed that during tomorrow afternoon's Shaanti Circle, we're going to talk about the word "Shaanti" and explore the richness of its meaning.
End of Class Prayers: Poornamadah, Chinmaya Pledge
Photo Gallery: July 20 (click here to view)
Comments: We got word that our caterpillars are en route from Washington State and should be arriving at the ashram tomorrow (Tuesday.) So, if all goes according to plan, our afternoon will be spent helping our little friends feel comfortable in their new homes (laden with food.) We have our fingers crossed that we will successfully raise another batch of 40-50 Painted Lady Butterflies.
The kids spent most of the day exploring our fun board games and puzzles. Lots of creative energy was had in building, and problem solving! Some of the children wanted to continue creating Lord Ganesha out of clay, so we pulled out more modeling clay for them to work with. Others wanted to explore off-loom bead weaving techniques -- which we are very happy about! Tomorrow morning we plan to bring out the spinning equipment -- apparently, more than a few of the kids were missing the charkhas and takhlis today.
