The Shiva Vishnu Temple of San Diego

BalaBhavan

NEWS Letter

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BalaBhavan

BalaBhavan Hours: Every 2^nd and 4^th Saturday of the month 5 – 6.15 pm

Volume 1 October 2003

Namaste , Welcome to our very first BalaBhavan Newsletter.

Bala Bhavan is a bi-monthly program for the children to teach them our Indian culture through mythological stories. This group was started in August 2002 by a few interested parents in San Diego. Sri Hariharan Kumar took the lead by coordinating between volunteer parents and organizing the class. After a successful year, it is in its 2^nd year of existence and the credit goes to many parent volunteers. The salient activities of the program are:

A. Story telling

1. Introduce children between ages 2.5-12 to the treasure of stories based on Indian epics, mythology, wisdom, history and heritage such as stories on Ganesha, Vishnu, Shiva.

2. Source from Ramayan, Bhagavatam, Panchatantra, Birbal, Tenali Rama etc.

3. Story telling includes interactive methods such as audio visual aids, games, puzzles and quiz.

B. Reciting Slokas & Bhajans

BalaBhavan children learn Slokas and Bhajans as part of the program. They recite them as a group on major occasions in the temple.

Bala Bhavan is divided into 3 groups.

Toddler : Ages – 2.5 – 4. Introduce children to a small sloka, a story and a craft.

Junior : Ages 4 – 7. Sloka, Bhajan and stories.

Senior : Ages 7 – 12. Sloka, Bhajan and stories.

Summer Highlights BalaBhavan students were busy in Summer 2003. BalaBhavan classes were conducted every week. Many students participated in Sri Krishna Janmashtami puja. Panditjis organized a wonderful puja by children. There was a beautiful light and sound show of Sri Krishna organized by Srinivas and Rama.

They also enthusiastically learned the making of the Ganesh idol before Ganesh Chaturthi. Many parents volunteered their time to make the idol making class was a success. Panditjis also arranged Ganesh Chaturthi puja by BalaBhavan children. On Ganesh Visarjan day the children enjoyed Ganesh idol immersion in Pacific Ocean.

BalaBhavan annual summer picnic was conducted on September 20^th at Dixon Lake. We thank many volunteers for organizing it and making it a grand success. The weather was perfect and there was a big turnout. Many children enjoyed playing our childhood games. Tomato (lemon) and spoon, Cricket, Ko-ko and Kabadi games were well planned.

Thanks to Ashok for organizing the games and thanks to Krishna, Rajasri and Lakshmi in coordinating the food and putting together the logistics.

Food was delicious and sumptuous and we ended the feast with a cake. The cake was in honor of BalaBhavan’s second birthday.

September Highlights: It is back to school month for BalaBhavan children. BalaBhavan resumed its bi-monthly classes with great enthusiasm. BalaBhavan has been growing consistently with many parent volunteers and more children attending it regularly.

Navaratri Golu was the next big event during Dasera in September. Many children shared their idols and dolls. There was a wonderful show on Adi Shankara organized by Srinivas. It was very laborious to put up the Golu and organize the show, yet it was very professional.

Kids Corner – Coming soon.

Upcoming events/festivals: Are you ready for the annual Talent Day? Mark your calendars – November 15^th is Talent Day. It will be held at the temple from 5pm onwards. Here are some details…

BalaBhavan Talent Day

Date: Saturday, November 15^th

Time: 5pm

Location: Temple main hall

• The kids can do any ONE of the following

v Sing a song/bhajan

v Say a sloka of their choice OR play an instrument

v Talk about something pertaining to Indian culture

v Perform a dance OR do a skit

• After their performance, if they want to, they can talk about their experiences in BalaBhavan- how and why they liked it, what it means to them.
• The performance can be individual or in groups (which is encouraged!)
• Each child can participate only once
• Please limit to 2 minutes for solos and 2 – 5 minutes for group performances as there many kids.
• Toddler kids are encouraged to participate as well - It will be great if they come up and say a sloka learnt during class.

The objective is not to pressure the kids but encourage participation as well as boost confidence in them. What to do next? Sign up!! You can do so by sending an email to rajakota@hotmail.com and tell what your child will be performing. Get ready for the big day!

Next BalaBhavan Class

is on November 8^th

Deepavali

is on Saturday,

October 25^th

Story of the Month

A Math Lesson

By H Kumar

Prof. Shivram Sharma was the head of the Mathematics department at Allahabad University. He was a world renowned professor and presented many papers in international conferences on statistical modeling. His students liked him very much since he taught them the intricacies of the subject and related to real-life situations very well.

The professor took his class on a field trip to a nearby village. On the way in the bus he quizzed his students on various math related areas in an applied fashion. Their bus stopped at a small village to get a cup of tea. Near their bus was parked about 8 bullock carts. The professor was curious what the carts carried, so he had a brief conversation with the head of the carts. He learnt that the carts were coming from a nearby village called Madhopur. The village had a huge milk dairy with about 800 cows. With so many cows disposal of the dung poses a big problem. The villagers solved this by forming a cooperative system where they took the dung home and converted into cow-dung cakes which were a good source of fuel. The cooperative would sell the excess of the cow-dung cakes in the nearby village shanty.

True to his mathematical nature the professor then went and quizzed his students, asking them if they could estimate in all how many cow-dung cakes were in the bullock carts. Every student came up with a different idea. One suggested sampling every cart and multiplying with the number of carts. A second student suggested finding the density, weighing the carts with and without the cakes and figuring out how many there were. The list of ideas grew.

The professor introduced the students to Kasiraj who was the head of the cooperative and was leading the line of carts. The students asked Kasiraj what was his education level and what he did for a living. He repeated that he had never stepped into a school and was managing the cooperative which consisted of about 100 families. The students asked him the same question their professor had posed them, how many cow-dung cakes there were in all. Kasiraj knew exactly how many there were. The students told the professor, this person doesn’t have any basic education, and what does he know about counting, let alone the total.

The professor negotiated a deal with Kasiraj that he would pay him half the price of the entire line of carts, if he allowed his students to inspect the carts for one hour. Kasiraj gladly accepted and let his men on a long tea break. The students in batches inspected each cart and came up with a count in each. They subsequently totaled the count and presented to the professor.

Prof. Sharma called Kasiraj and asked him what the count was and it tallied exactly with the total the students came up with. Kasiraj explained that they had a system that every household which dried the cakes would put a dot each from the first to the fifth. Then they started over, which helped them count in five’s. Each sack would take 20 packs of five each and every cart could carry 8 sacks. Kasiraj exclaimed “you all seem to be very educated and I am sure you can multiply these numbers”.

The students were pretty amazed at the intelligence displayed by Kasiraj. Prof. Sharma addressed his students and said that however much you learn in college and you think you have learnt, you need to understand the system behind every trade. You should not underestimate that one is not educated and therefore does not know much about the trade. The students learnt a true Math lesson that day.

Donations/Purchases: We recently acquired an Infocus X1 projector for use in BalaBhavan classes. This purchase was completely supported by the parents of BalaBhavan. Great support and thanks to everyone.

Library: We are happy to announce some more new additions to our vast library. Checkout the list at http://www.indianstorybooks.com/list.htm. Please return books and videos on time and don’t forget to sign out your details when borrowing a book. Please contact us if you would like to donate or buy books for the library.

FAQs:

Q:How do I volunteer?

A: You can contact h_kumar@yahoo.com for any help you can provide to encourage this project.

Finally, want to improve this Newsletter? Please forward your comments/suggestions to skalluri@san.rr.com and h_kumar@yahoo.com

Past Issues: We will provide links to past issues in this section.

BalaBhavan Volunteers:

Coordinators:

Kumar, Rajasri

Sloka/Bhajan teacher:

Shobha, Pratibha, Savi, Latha, Rama, Lalitha, Prashanthi

Story teacher:

Ram, Ashok, Kumar, Shaker, Mahesh, Prasad, Shaker, Srinivas

Toddler Class Volunteers:

Most of the toddler parents.

Audio Visual :

Srinivas

Event Coordinators:

Krishna, Lakshmi

Webmaster:

Sanjay

Links to related sites:

Shiva Vishnu Temple - www.shiva-vishnu.org

BalaBhavan 2003 Calendar - https://balabhavan.tripod.com/calendar2003.htm

Editors: Shanti Kalluri – skalluri@san.rr.com , Padmini Mylavarapu – padmini@san.rr.com and Aparna – aparnavemuri@yahoo.com.

7930, Arjons Drive, Suite B, San Diego, CA-92126

Phone: (858) 549-3940; Fax: (858) 549-3908

www.shiva-vishnu.org; information@shiva-vishnu.org

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