Virtual PreSkool

Today is Ram Navami, celebrated as the birth of Ram. In class I share the story of his father, King Dashrath’s life leading up to the birth of Ram and his 3 younger brothers: Bharat, Lakshman, and Shatragun.

I write the story in English and put together all of the illustrations so that my students will understand it. This is an excerpt, highlighting when Ram was born.

Ram reminds us that one person can make a difference, to have the courage to stand up to injustice and the power of leading life with contentedness and the ability to forgive.

Happy Ram Navami!

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I’m prepping lessons about kapaday (clothes) for students. I teach them what shirts, shorts, shoes, socks, etc. are called in Hindi as well as sleeveless, half sleeve and full sleeve shirts and combine it with colors and numbers vocabulary they’ve already learned as they pack their bags to travel across the globe, right from their Hindi class on Zoom.

It’s a lot of fun!

Download our fruits and vegetables flashcards from our blog, free. 



https://virtualpreskool.com/2023/02/03/fruits-and-vegetables-in-hindi/

Holi Hai! Happy Holi to all!

A couple weeks ago I hosted a reading of my kid-friendly version of the story of the Origin of Holi during my Story Time With Samta Aunty.

It was so much fun! It's so cute to see the children's expressions as they follow along with the bad guy vs. the good guy who overcome challenges.

Throughout the story I taught Hindi vocabulary and taught them about India's beloved festival of colors. Why it's called Holi, why it's associated with colors, why it's celebrated with gulaal and where that tradition came from.

Wishing you a very happy Holi and everything wonderful as we head into spring and summer.

Being a Hindi Teacher…😁

Dorothy, follow the dhol. Ready for an Indian wedding this weekend.

Holi is in 1 week! Parents that are interested in teaching their kids about India's beloved Festival of Colors, I made a list of books available on Amazon now.

Categorized in the way you need: age, type, use, for parents presenting Holi at their kids' school, free resources, and more. All books in English.

Holi Books For Kids - Conversational Hindi Classes For Kids Online Holi books for kids shares story books, picture books, activity and coloring books categorized by age for children to learn about Holi.

How to describe shirts as sleeveless, half or full sleeves in Hindi with several practice problems.

How to describe sleeveless, short and long sleeved shirts in Hindi. Students will learn the vocabulary as well as do several practice problems to practice how to describe shirt sleeves in Hindi. Virtual PreSkool is a US based...

Mind those tricky “Hs” folks!

Cheers to the weekend!

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Holi is around the corner. Get your playlist ready with these Bollywood Holi songs.
We covered Hindi hits from the 70s-today!

Bollywood Holi Songs - Conversational Hindi Classes For Kids Online Bollywood Holi songs videos from the 1970's to present day to help you celebrate the beloved Festival of Colors.

Conjugating verbs in Hindi can be a little complicated and it's also key to be able to speak Hindi. I recently started teaching present tense in bite-sized pieces to younger students age 4-7. This is a short intro how to.

Intro to Verb Conjugation in Hindi for age 4-7. This video is intended for enrolled students age 4-7 who are learning how to conjugate verbs in Hindi. In this video practice the lesson from class with prob...

I love it when my students see images in class, identify and relate them to their own lives. On this day, I taught little ones Indian clothing vocabulary.

They had a great time and they each ran to their parents asking to get their salwars, sherwani’s, chudiyan, etc. from their closets so they could show and share to the whole class. It was so cute.

And most importantly they learned (it was a great opportunity to practice colors in Hindi) and they had fun.

Leading With Empathy and Compassion

I have a high school student who has some medical issues so he has round-the-clock nurse care at his home. Last week the nurse went into cardiac arrest...at his house...in front of him.

HE called 911, while shouting for his mom who was in the other room. Soon the house was full of firefighters and EMTs. Still, a couple hours later he logged in for class.

When he shared what happened and I could see how shaken he was, we switched gears. I had planned to teach Hindi grammar and vocabulary. But that's not what he needed.

Instead I turned on cartoons about Little Krishna, when he was young (like my student) that illustrated how he overcame very adverse situations with courage and strength.

The next day I received a note from his mother, appreciating my small gesture.
I was just being a person.

Being Desi in America.

I get asked often whether Bollywood is a good way to learn Hindi. And my answer is always, “it depends”. Is your child absorbing any Hindi or just reading the subtitles? My mom and I used to pause the movie throughout and talk about vocabulary and phrases.

She also pointed out pronunciation, inflection and on the cultural side traditions and norms. If you’re doing the latter - then YES! Bollywood can be a very effective way to absorb Hindi.

For little ones, when they hear songs and movie titles i.e. Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham I suggest sharing what it means and what each word means. They’ll pick up vocabulary and it’s so cute when they come to class and say things like, “Aunty, I’m khush today”.

By the way, here’s my opinion on kid-friendly Bollywood movies. These are ones you can find on either Netflix or Amazon (Prime) today. Happy learning!

K3G - Netflix

Kuch Kuch Hota Hain - Netflix
Kal Ho Naa Ho - Netflix

Khoobsurat - Netflix

Om Shanti Om - Netflix

83 - Netflix

Main Hoon Na - Netflix

DDLJ - Amazon

Mujhse Dosti Karoge - Amazon

Hum Saath Saath Hain - Amazon

Dil Bole Hadippa - Amazon

Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi - Amazon

Chak De India - Amazon

Funny, short fruits and vegetables poem in Hindi of course, to get the fun started for the weekend.

Learn Hindi Fruit Vocabulary: Apple Orange Banana, with this rhyme by Samta Aunty This video is for our students age 3-5 who learned apple, orange, and banana in Hindi. This is a poem written by Samta Aunty to help you remember the vocabul...

Did you know our YouTube channel has hundreds of videos with bite-sized Hindi lessons? Yep! And they're all free! Anyone can watch and learn! Internet Zindabad! YouTube Zindabad!

VirtualPreSkool - YouTube Virtual PreSkool is a US based company that provides Hindi classes for children, online. Children learn to speak and understand conversational Hindi while le...

Join me for a Story Time With Samta Aunty on Sunday, February 19. I'll be reading my kid-friendly origin of Holi story, in English with Hindi vocab sprinkled throughout.

This event is free, via Zoom. Register now!

Join Us For Story Time With Samta Aunty! Join us for Krishna Janmashtami Story Time With Samta Aunty. Samta, Founder of Virtual PreSkool adapted this tale into a kid-friendly version

Our first date was on Pyaar Day. This week in class I’ve been teaching my students pyaar vocabulary. I taught my youngest students to tell their parents and siblings, “I pyaar you”. 


For my older students and advanced classes we are just starting on different forms subject and possessive pronouns such as “aapse and aapko”. I like to ease my students into these as they can be confusing since they sound similar and because the use cases are so different than what they’re accustomed to in English.

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This has happened a bunch of times and it never gets old and never stops being adorable. Sometimes it’s while counting, a student go full steam: uno, dos, tres... to 10 or 20. I never interrupt as I never want shatter their confidence. Besides, isn’t it impressive that they know Spanish, English AND learning Hindi. 


When the student is finished, I give them positive feedback, in Spanish (I’m from Cali. I grew up learning Spanish too). And then lovingly remind them to do it all over again…but in Hindi.

It’s hilarious how some kids will look at me like I have two heads as they’re thinking, “Um…did you not hear me? I just did that.” And it’s even more adorable when the light bulb goes off when they realize that they were speaking in Spanish. 🙃

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How to conjugate "to read" in Hindi in present tense. These short videos we make, are focused on 1 topic, to make learning and practice easy for children.

There are hundreds of such videos on our YouTube channel - available for free.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCA4_wqzgLRU0IdtA9Y0TPbA

How to Conjugate the verb, "to Eat in Present Tense in Hindi. Learn the subject pronouns, verb conjugations and endings through full sentence translation problems. Virtual PreSkool is a US based company that provides Hi...

Download our fruits and vegetables flashcards, free!

Fruits and Vegetables in Hindi - Hindi Classes For Kids Online Guide on fruits and vegetables vocabulary in Hindi with videos to make them easy to learn and flashcards that you can download.

This week I’ve had haldi (turmeric) on my mind. I taught my students emotion and feelings vocabulary and one of the phrases was, “mai beemaar hoo” (I am sick). I asked students if they’ve ever had haldi paani or haldi dudh and they cutely said, “Well, my mom makes me drink it when I’m sick.” 🤣



I said “yes, beta, haldi is magic in a orangish powder”. And then I showed them this picture from the haldi ceremony at my wedding. They’d never seen this so they were very vocal with their surprise and questions - it was so adorable.

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Hilarious Moment in Class.

“Or” in Hindi = yaa.

Me: ok, babu (sweetheart) how do we say Saturday or Sunday in Hindi?

Student: Shanivaar (Saturday)…yee? yo? yay? chuckles…Aunty, is one of those, or?

Me: (smiling, laughing) No, but I think we should spend the rest of class turning this into a song. It’s yaa.

Student: Yaaaaaa! That’s the only 1 I didn’t try. 🤣

A couple nights ago I attended a networking event for South Asian women in Santa Monica. As I introduced myself to people I was surprised and SO happy to see the mother of one of my students! We immediately recognized each other and embraced in a hug. 😀

All of my classes are over Zoom so meeting my students or their family, in-person, is rare. In the 2.5 years since I started this company it’s happened once. So for me, it was a VERY special moment of joy.

Meeting new people, building connections with my students and their families and making an impact in their lives is just one of the many things I love about starting Virtual PreSkool.

This was such a cute moment in class. I was telling them Ramayan and little Kaushalya’s adorable face LIT up upon hearing her name in the story. I had to pause and acknowledge her and the connection, and that’s when she said, “So, I’m Ram’s mom?!” SO cute! Gosh, I love what I do every day. I love being a Hindi teacher.