Hari Om Parents,
The first day of the balavihar session was exciting. We all assembled in the main hall, and the students followed the teachers to class. We introduced a new way to keep the students awake and active - Using catches with Soft tennis balls and throws with ping pong balls.
The students threw the ball to one another in class. Anyone who missed would have to answer a question - in this case, we got them to talk about any one personality from the Mahabharata. Soon, the students were all alert, and no one missed.
Ping-pong balls are to make sure they do not have side conversations. The kids enjoy it when we suddenly toss the balls on some of them to get their attention. Ping-pong ball coming your way implies you have to answer a question related to the topic being discussed -
We got the students to recap the Mahabharata. We discussed about Mahabharata being an Ithihasa ( Iti - ha - asa which means thus indeed it has been ).
Some parents joined the class and got a flavor of how the class goes on. We answered some questions from the parents about the class.
This class will analyze the characters from the Mahabharata, so we expect the students to be familiar with the Mahabharata. The recommended book is C.Rajagopalachari's Mahabharata - link to the Amazon Kindle version. The Amar Chitra Katha online version would probably be easier for students to get familiar with the epic.
We plan to make the class fun and casual. We are looking for active class participation throughout the year.
Regards
Partha Turaga
Abhirami Shrinivas
