TKG Academy

Read about our Fall Leaf books, trip to Tulasi’s house, and Lion Crafts…

November brought with it beautiful glorious Fall.  The Gurukula Building and playground are set in a beautiful pecan grove.  Many of these trees shade the children in the summer from the Texas heat.  And all those trees start dropping their leaves, floating down gradually in the Fall.  It’s such a beautiful sight.

We’d be in middle of teaching class and one of the kids would just happen to look outside.. Look Look (or wook wook depending on who it is.. hehe)  The leaves are falling!!   It was perfect for Calendar time, when we discuss weather and changing seasons.  Fall was alive outside our window.

Luckily, letter L also meant studying leaves so we took our annual trip to the area behind the temple, next to Mother Gita’s house, where soo many colored leaves are chilling out on the ground.  Green, yellow, orange, red, brown and yes, even purple.  Some leaves have a beautiful mix of colors and the kids love looking at those. 

When we came back, we classified them by color, counted them and glued them into our little Leaf Books that were also colored and numbered.  Older kids wrote down the names of the colors to help them read those sight words.

One day, we also made Leaf Rubbings with different colored pencils.

Here are the books that we made.

Leaf also meant learning about Srimati Tulasi Devi and the kids made a special trip to the Tulasi house with Mother Rasakeli.  They learned why she is special to Krishna and why we worship Her.  They got a chance to watch the tulasi arati and perform parikrama around her.  It was befitting because Tulasi – Shalagram Vivaha was right around the corner.

Ring around the tulasi tree, pocket full of tulasi leaves, for Krishna for Krishna, We all bow down!

Another day, we studied Lions, their habitats, their cubs, watched videos of them and made a Lion craft.