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 Swamiji. (Chinmaya Book of Vedic Chants, page 3)
• Medha Sukhtam with Swamiji. (Chinmaya Book of Vedic Chants, page 35)
• Gayatri Mantra with Swamiji. (Chinmaya Book of Vedic Chants, page 5)
Bhajans:
Storytime with Swamiji: Swamiji continued the video on Vamana.
Art Projects: Bead Weaving Techniques -- on-loom and off-loom.
Shaanti Circle Discussion: The challenge is on! After our morning prayers, we successfully completed 4 minutes of silence with perfect accuracy on our pebble count. Tomorrow we will try for 5 minutes. If we can sit silently and focus on our pebble drop (without any distrubances,) then this camp week will be the winner (so far) of the longest time! Get ready, kids ...
If was a very rainy, cold day today. So, during our afternoon circle time, we decided to watch some beautiful animation films. They were: The Mixed-Up Chameleon by Eric Carle (click here to view), The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle (click here to view), Kiwi (click here to view,) Self-Sufficiency Kids (click here to view,) and Wonderful World Shadow Puppet by Raymond Crowe (click here to view.) I know it sounds like a lot, parents, but trust us ... it wasn't. Each animation is only a few minutes long, at most :-)
End of Class Prayers: Poornamadah, Chinmaya Pledge
Photo Gallery: July 23 (click here to view)
Comments: It was definitely a cold and rainy day today. Nobody went outdoors -- instead we stayed inside and worked on our beading projects, read books, played games, and laughed alot. Some children continued knotting their japa malas from a few weeks back.
We happened to look at the caterpillars today -- and were quite surprised to learn that most of them are already hanging (in the "hooked" position) from the top of the lids! This transformation is happening pretty quickly -- so we should be releasing some butterflies into the gardens in about another 10 days or so.
Swamiji is off to Boston for the weekend -- we are definitely going to miss him tomorrow, but look forward to seeing him again on Monday. Also, we bid a temporary farewell to Bramacharya Ericji. Many thanks to him for stopping by the camp and lending some fun to our day!
