Bala Vihar

All Bala Vihar and all classes for the 2020-21 year have ended. Please check back later in the summer for 2021-22 year information.

CMSJ’s Chinmaya Bala Vihar – the Cultural School – operates at five locations: Berkeley, Fremont, San Jose, San Mateo and San Ramon.

Bala Vihar in the Bay Area was started in 1981 by our dear Uma Auntie under the guidance of Pujya Gurudev. It has grown from a humble beginning of 6 children to over 2150 students spread across five locations today. For 2020-21, all classes were conducted online.

The classes are arranged according to the school system – Kindergarten through High School (K-12). We do not place children in class by age. The grade in which the child is enrolled in school is the consideration for admission to Chinmaya Bala Vihar/Yuva Kendra.

About Shishu Vihar (Bala Vihar for PreKG)

Shishu Vihar is a parent-and-toddler style class for 3 and 4 year olds. Children attend with their parents and get familiar with basic concepts in Hinduism (gods and their characteristics, names of holidays) in a fun and engaging way through song, stories, arts and crafts appropriate to their age and development.

Swamini Supriyananda (a child psychologist before she turned to the Vedantic path) conceptualized Shishu Vihar and first implemented it in Hong Kong years ago. She has trained all of CMSJ’s Shishu Vihar teachers in the style and preparatory materials for this class. If you have any further questions, please reach out to the co-ordinator of the location nearest to you.

Languages

Several Indian languages are also taught as part of this program.

Please note, however, that registration to just language classes is not supported. Students have to be enrolled in and attend Chinmaya Bala Vihar/Yuva Kendra classes to be eligible for language class. In other words, to register for language classes, students must first register in Chinmaya Bala Vihar/Yuva Kendra classes and attend them.

San Mateo: Hindi
San Jose: Hindi, Malayalam, Marathi, Sanskrit, Tamil and Telugu
Fremont: Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Sanskrit and Telugu
San Ramon: Sanskrit, Hindi, Malayalam and Telugu

Note: The languages offered may change from year to year.