![\"\"](\"https:\/\/lh3.googleusercontent.com\/-wPgJYSXV4s0\/VmsBXI2rcrI\/AAAAAAAAXgQ\/w5NzeWK-Knk\/s0\/2015-12-11_18-01-05.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
By Madhava Smullen<\/strong><\/p>\n A group of preschool children, along with their devotee parents and grandparents, bustled excitedly into Gopal\u2019s Garden Homeschool Co-Op for their graduation party on November 5th. Gopal\u2019s Garden was established in New Vrindaban, West Virginia \u2013 Srila Prabhupada\u2019s first farm community — in 2007 by Ruci Dasi. It runs to eighth grade, and teaches thirteen students in total. \u201cWe decided to do it as soon as my son Sanjaya and Sundari\u2019s daughter Bhumi were the right age, so that they could be together, and play and learn with other children in the community,\u201d says Mercy, who was born and raised in New Vrindaban and wants to pursue a career in teaching. <\/p>\n Mercy assists head teacher Sundari, who moved to New Vrindaban from Bangalore in 2011 and holds a Montessori teacher training certificate. Under their care from 12:30 to 3:30 each day this year, the children learned basic ABCs, counting, colors, arts and crafts, how to share, hand-eye coordination and speech development along with spiritual projects that put Krishna in the center.<\/p>\n The teachers\u2019 children Bhumi and Sanjaya both attended the recent graduation party at Gopal\u2019s Garden to celebrate their first year of school, along with Malini, Pranaya Keli, Rama Lochana, Nadia, and Harilila. Arjuna, who was absent because he was traveling with his parents, also completed the year.<\/p>\n The event ran from 6 to 8:30pm, beginning with everyone offering ghee lamps together to Lord Damodara, along with the classroom deities of Radha Krishna and Jagannath, Baladeva and Subhadra.<\/p>\n A video presentation entitled \u201cGlimpses of Gopal\u2019s Garden Preschool\u201d followed, showing the young students\u2019 heartwarming participation in Krishna conscious festivals throughout the year. <\/p>\n \u201cFor our first festival of the year, Pushpa Abhisekha, we had a picking party with the kids where we picked a bunch of local flowers here in New Vrindaban, then they pulled off the petals and showered the deities with them,\u201d says Mercy. \u201cIt was so sweet.\u201d<\/p>\n Next, the children participated in ISKCON New Vrindaban\u2019s Rathayatra by helping to make outfits for their classroom Jagannath Deities, decorating a small cart that community members came together to build, and pulling it while having an ecstatic kirtan. All the parents then made a special offering of cupcakes and cookies to Lord Jagannath, and distributed them to the children.<\/p>\n On Janmastami, the students got to bathe their Radha Krishna Deities in saffron water, and take turns pushing them on a special Jhulan Yatra swing that had been constructed for the occasion. <\/p>\n And on October 25th, a week before Halloween, the teachers and parents got creative and held a Krishna-ized Halloween party with all the children dressed as demons from Srila Prabhupada\u2019s book Krishna: The Supreme Personality of Godhead. The parents then ascended a stage with their child and narrated the pastime of how Lord Krishna dispatched that particular demon.<\/p>\n Meanwhile in honor of the 50th anniversary of Srila Prabhupada\u2019s arrival to the West, the children got to decorate a construction paper \u201cJaladuta\u201d ship and glue blue cotton balls around it to represent the ocean.<\/p>\n After the video depicting all these activities, the children stood and sang classic gurukula songs like \u201cMy Name is Aghasura,\u201d \u201cKrishna\u2019s Devotees Had A Farm,\u201dand Mercy\u2019s own composition to the tune of \u201cMary Had A Little Lamb\u201d \u2013 \u201cKrishna Has A Little Calf.\u201d They also demonstrated their \u201cABCs.\u201d<\/p>\n Sundari and Mercy then presented proposed plans for improving the preschool in 2016. <\/p>\n \u201cAs next year will be more focused on academics and learning, we will introduce a worksheet program, teaching the kids how to trace and write letters so that they can start learning how to write their own names,\u201d says Sundari. \u201cWe\u2019ll also start teaching them the Spanish and Sanskrit for English words they\u2019re learning.\u201d<\/p>\n Health will also be a priority. There will be more outdoor games, and yoga taught by Sundari \u2013 who has a diploma from Bangalore\u2019s VYASA yoga university \u2013 so that the children can burn off their energy and learn motor skills. Lunch time, instead of consisting of store-bought snacks as it did this year, will feature a full meal such as rice, dahl and bread cooked by a different parent each day.<\/p>\n Inside the classroom, individual cubbies will be installed for each child to learn to put away their jackets, shoes and personal items. <\/p>\n And as always, Krishna consciousness will be a priority: a proper altar will replace the current dovetailed bookshelf. \u201cWe also want to have a couple of Laddhu Gopal Deities, so that the children can learn to dress Them and offer their food to Them,\u201d Sundari says.<\/p>\n To conclude the graduation program, the children were presented with certificates. Finally, principal Ruci Dasi and president Jaya Krsna Das spoke, thanking Sundari and Mercy for their dedication and enthusiasm and praising how the school has brought the community together.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s wonderful to see the kids hugging each other when they come in, and to see all the parents becoming friends,\u201d said Jaya Krsna. \u201cMany of them would not even know each other if the pre-school didn\u2019t exist, as they live several miles apart from each other.\u201d <\/p>\n He was glad to see the preschool training the children so early in life in Krishna consciousness, in a way that would be a challenge for their parents to do with their busy schedules. He also appreciated that the preschool gave parents, especially mothers, some much needed free time in which to rest, chant, or engage in other activities, while feeling assured that their children are being nicely taken care of. A group of preschool children, along with their devotee parents and grandparents, bustled excitedly into Gopal\u2019s Garden Homeschool Co-Op for their graduation party on November 5th. The event had ISKCON New Vrindaban president Jaya Krsna Das calling the Co-Op \u201ccommunity building at its best.\u201d Gopal\u2019s Garden was established in New Vrindaban, West Virginia \u2013 Srila Prabhupada\u2019s first farm community — in 2007 by Ruci Dasi. It runs to eighth grade, and teaches thirteen students in total. Its preschool, which cares for eight children aged three to five, was an individual effort launched this April by New Vrindaban residents and parents Sundari Dasi and Mercy. \u201cWe decided to do it as soon as my son Sanjaya and Sundari\u2019s daughter Bhumi were the right age, so that they could be together, and play and learn with other children in the community,\u201d says Mercy, who was born and raised in New Vrindaban and wants to pursue a career in teaching. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22433"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22433\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22435,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22433\/revisions\/22435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nThe event had ISKCON New Vrindaban president Jaya Krsna Das calling the Co-Op \u201ccommunity building at its best.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n Its preschool, which cares for eight children aged three to five, was an individual effort launched this April by New Vrindaban residents and parents Sundari Dasi and Mercy.<\/p>\n
\nWeeks after the graduation event, Jaya Krsna is still bubbling over with enthusiasm and appreciation for the preschool.
\n\u201cFor me, it\u2019s just Krishna\u2019s magic,\u201d he says. \u201cThese kids are our future; and so the preschool is doing nothing less than building the future of New Vrindaban.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"![\"Hare](\"https:\/\/lh3.googleusercontent.com\/-qhoCMK-8LkE\/VmsBjGiRS1I\/AAAAAAAAXgY\/NlpdAUkD-Cs\/s0\/2015-12-11_18-02-04.jpg\")
By Madhava Smullen<\/strong><\/p>\n