8th Online Children Dharma Class – Never Give Up on Your Dream and Seize the Golden Opportunities
On the 17th of October 2021, FGS NZ YAD resumed the 1st online Children Dharma Class for the fourth semester. There are 13 children aged between 5 to 11 who attended the class. After the holiday, the children were very passionate, and everyone was positive during the class.
The class was hosted by Thomas, Jane, and Yvonne. Thomas began the class by leading the chanting of Ode to Triple Gems (三寶頌), which gives the opportunities for students to explore the beauty of chanting. Jane then carried on the class by teaching through Bodhi Light Tales 31: Five Dollar Silence by Venerable MiaoGuang. The podcast mentioned how to gain golden opportunities and seize chances to tackle when we address difficulties. This lesson is undoubtedly essential to young children, it is using money to solve issues, but we can also think of different ways to overcome them. “I learned kindness, joy, and happiness,” Emmeline added. We used online interactive tools such as ‘Kahoot’ to interact with the students. The students felt active and engaged, which helped them more understand Buddhism values in a fun and engaging way. Carter, another student, added, “The Kahoot was very fun. It warms up the students’ minds and gets them a good mindset for the rest of the lesson.”
Next, Thomas explained the Ode to Triple Gems sentence by sentence to students carefully and straightforwardly, ensuring young children can understand the meaning of it. Afterwards, Yvonne shared an interesting short film video regarding dreams with the children, and both asked and answered some questions. The session was significant for the students, which aimed to express the greatness of maternal love. All parents hope their children can grow up happily and follow their dreams to do what they want to be. Meanwhile, the children were excited to present their dream with fellow friends throughout the session. “I learned that you can find a lot of things at once, and you can always be successful and happy.” Zoey shared.
Thomas concluded the class by presenting a scoreboard, encouraging and helping children open their minds to create more ideas and get high scores. Yvonne expressed, “Having such opportunity to teach more knowledge and skills to the children is much appreciated.” She felt that it was an exciting session and was proud of most children’s engagement and contributions.