Chinmaya Vrindavan

Vrindavan Balavihar Houses

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Gallery : 2023-24 Back to Main Gallery

Seva and Field Day - March 16th

On March 16th more than a 100 children, their parents and Bala Vihar Sevaks joined together to work on several Seva projects.

1. Lunch bags for TASK - Toddlers to 5th grade made PBJ sandwich bags (more than 180) for Trenton Area Soup Kitchen, which was dropped off on 18th March by volunteers.

2. 4 No Sew Fleece Blankets were made which will be donated

3. Ashram Clean up - Children and Adults worked together to clean up trash around the Ashram and organize cabinets in the temple

4. Assemble Benches - Chinmaya Vrindavan earned recycled benches for having participated in the recycling of plastic bags last year.

5. Craft projects - children made craft kits for younger grades to use to make tea lanterns for Gurudev's 108th Jayanti this year. They also learned to crochet baby booties to be donated to a not for profit hospital.

6. Garlands for Temple Deities - They learned to make flower garlands for Temple deities.

7. Recycling - Middle and high schoolers worked on Recycling educational material like posters, presentations and quizzes to be used in the Ashram

After pitching in to help with different Seva activities, kids and adults assembled outside for some Field Day fun. Younger kids had lemon and spoon, sack race, three legged race and relay race. They also played Dodge ball and capture the flag and tug of war. Older kids and adults had fun with Volley ball, Tennikoit, Kho Kho, and Cricket. By Gurudev's Grace, the weather was perfect for outside sports. Everyone got to enjoy the yummy Bhel Puri prepared by our volunteers and cookies, cupcakes and juice. There were a group of Bala Vihar families visiting from New York who also joined in for sometime.

Shlokathon 2024 - March 9th

More than 130 children participated in the Shlokathon on March 9th. Children picked up participation prizes and earned House Points. They chanted in front of the judges in the rooms and then came and chanted a few shlokas in the Temple stage.

House Spirit Day Feb 23/25 2024

A session full of team building activities from PreK - 12th grade. KG-7 had 2 activities each in their classes and 8-12 had 4 challenges to complete in the main hall. Everyone came together for the final activity in the Temple Hall. They had Ramayana themed activities like shooting arrows at Ravana's heads, Likhita Japa garland, solving Ramayana picture clues etc.

Seva Projects

Sewa Diwali, Treats for Troops, Paracord Bracelets and Soup Kitchen Seva by Bala Vihar Children and parents along with our Sevaks.

Nearly 2000lbs of food items were donated to the Monroe Township Food Pantry as part of our Annual Sewa Diwali Drive. Children helped sort, estimate and load the items donated.

The Bala Vihar community shared all their excess candy from Halloween and the children along with parents packed and wrote nice cards for the troops. Children also write nice cards for them. These were then delivered to the National Guards base in New Jersey as part of the Soldier's Angels program.

Middle and High schoolers along with parents learned how to make paracord bracelets to be sent to the deployed troops in care packages.

Every month a couple of Bala Vihar classes take up the responsibility to give food for the 80 people in the Family Shelter and Men's shelter in Edison. For Thanksgiving, as a Treat, we catered a special dinner on Nov 26th with the contributions of our Bala Vihar parents.

House Inaugural - Sep 29/Oct 1

Gallery : 2022-23

Bhajanotsav event on April 29th 2023

17 teams participated with nearly a hundred children in the first ever Bhajanotsav. Teachers and parents mentored the children who all sang two Bhajans each beautifully.

Shlokathon event on March 18th 2023

More than 120 children participated in the Shlokathon event on March 18th. All participants were given House points and prizes for participation according to their scores.

HOUSE SPIRIT DAY ON FEB 24/26th

A Balavihar session full of fun Team building activities for the children. There was a final activity for all the children in the temple hall. Bajrangi's Bolts were the overall winners across the 3 sessions!

Pre K - Puzzles, Pin the weapon on Durga, Story sequencing and Memory Games

KG - 3rd Gr - Cup Tower Challenge and Crabwalk Challenge

4th - 7th Gr - Paper Tower Challenge and Chopstick Challenge

Gr 8-12 - Da Vinci Popsicle Bridge, Rangoli, Tangram, Picture Puzzle

Final Activity - Pipeline Challenge

HOUSE INAUGURAL ON OCT 28/30th

All children walked into the House Assembly waving flags of their House color and their House cheer. After singing the House Bhajan, there was a small team activity based on the theme for this year Bhakti! All houses were given 4 picture puzzles of devotees of their House Deity and had to work together to quickly finish and put it up on a poster board. The House captains had to unscramble a short paragraph about the Devotee and then read it in the Assembly. Children had fun working together. House Contests were then announced including the new Bhajanotsav contest in April 2023.

Gallery : 2021

House Inaugural on Oct 29th and Oct 31^st

8th-12th graders were put in breakout rooms based on their House - they were given the Game of Dice scene in the Mahabharata and asked to come up with responses in the form of Tweets by the characters from the story - which they then presented as a TV Newsdesk would with commentary! Click here for the Videos of the presentations by 8th-12th graders!

Kindergarten - 7th Grade had a quiz based on ancient maps of India from Ramayana/Mahabharata times to recent times - See below for some pictures from their activity. PreK/Toddlers had their own set of activities in class.