4th Sem Online Children Dharma Class 8 – The Importance of Having a Compassionate Mind

The 12th of December 2021 marked our 8th Children Dharma Class for the fourth semester. Three teachers, Sin Jun, Jane, and Lucy taught the class. At the start of the session, the chanting of Ode to Triple Gem 三寶頌 was initiated by Jane. It was fascinating to see some students sing certain verses by themselves. It was great to see student Irene sing the whole chant by herself.

Teacher Sin Jun continued the class by reading aloud one of the Buddha Light’ Tales, The Crow’s Caw, which talks about the five precepts in Buddhism and explores wisdom by using a story with fascinating characters such as a crow and a magpie.  The students learned that the gentle and loving speech brings hope to other people. He carried on to a Kahoot! session; the students enjoyed it as it has been a while since Kahoot was used. Sin Jun has said that it was really impressive to see the students participate despite the limitation of online meetings.

Teacher Jane continued with an exercise game that focused mainly on stretches. The stretches ranged from easy, medium, to complex levels. Every student was willing to go at it! Students participated enthusiastically and in an engaging manner. We invited two students to showcase a move near the end of this session. This is such a pro-active attitude that supports exciting learning.  Teacher Jane said that it was pleasing to see the children engaged in activities and interacted in the class proactively.

Teacher Lucy took over the next part of the class with Would You Rather, a choice selection game. Students had to perform exercises according to the choice that they had made. This time around, we had many more varieties to choose from, such as where you would like to live, which animal you would rather be, and food choices. Teacher Lucy said that it was nice seeing the students being on their feet so actively and constantly critically making choices.

Collecting points through winning Kahoot!, answering questions, and doing exercises made the students very excited and engaged throughout the session. At the end of the session, a warm and fun reward ceremony that involved prize-giving visuals was presented to the students to encourage their participation in the class. Raymond, a student from the class, shared that he enjoyed the dharma class as he can learn life values and make great friends through the class.