Piano Recital - Aashini :)

Aashini and her "Little Mozarts" Class had a recital last week :)  Aashini has had fun in this class :)  They learn to play the piano, but they also learn to "hear" the music/rhythms/beats, etc...  Here they are doing a dance to one of their songs.  They do different motions for different parts of the song :)

 Aashini had two solos.  Her first was "Hot Cross Buns" :)

 Her 2nd solo was "We Three Kings".  She forgot this one a little bit, but she still did great :) 

Her class gave Mrs. Aimee a gift at the end :)

 Here is the Little Mozarts Class (and Diya) :)

Here's a Video!

Diya - Annual Day - Retro Post - March 2013

Diya had her Annual day at the end of the school year.  Things got crazy and I forgot to post about it.  So... better late than never!

 Their grade did a patriotic dance.

 Diya LOVED it and was so proud of herself!  She talked about it for WEEKS!

 She was a little distracted by the guys behind her waving flags though :) haha!

 Here's Diya with one of her best friends... Heemanya.

  They're cute :)

 I like Diya's pose here :)

 It was a cute little dance :)

 Here's a video of her performance if you want to see it :)

Here she is afterwards :)

The ride home :) haha!

Aashini's First Piano Recital

Aashini has been taking piano lessons for about a year now.  In December she had her first piano recital :)  She is in a group class and they are going through a cute book (Music for Little Mozarts) that is great for kids their age!

We had a party after the recital and Anoop's mom made this awesome cake!!  Awesome hunh?  (That's Mozart Mouse and Beethoven Bear on the cake).

 Here is everyone ready for the recital!

Here is Aashini performing her first piece :)

 After they performed each kid bowed or curtsied.   Aashini did a "bow and bolt" - haha! :)

 The book they are using has lots of different songs that they sing and dance to that teach all sorts of things about music.  Here they are acting out one of the songs, "Hey Mr. Elephant" :)

 Here they are singing the "Do Re Me" song :)

 Here is Aashini doing her 2nd piece.  This one she played with her teacher Mrs. Aimee :)

 Aashini getting her certificate :) 

 Aashini selected her outfit and her accessories all on her own for this event :) haha!

 Here is their class :)

And here's a short video of the performance :)

Annual Day!

Before yesterday we were really liking Aashini's school... After yesterday we were more than impressed. It's quite the school! Yesterday was the school's "Annual Day". They do a big performance once a year. When I say big, I mean BIG! There are over 18 Mother's Pride Schools in the Capital Region (with over 10,000 kids enrolled!). So with that many kids, the Annual Day actually takes place over 3 days with 2 programs each day! Our school (along with 2 others performed together) was yesterday from 3:00 - 7:30 pm - yeah, it's LONG - but sooo fun!!

It was at a big auditorium in our city. They hold a lot of big functions at it. It can hold over 2,500 people and EVERY seat had a person in it and there were people sitting in the aisles, standing in the back, etc... there were a TON of people there!

They started the performance with a w'ship time to the god Ganesh.... it was interesting.

They had different classes doing different performances. Aashini's age group didn't perform - 2.5 years and older classes perform. This one (below) was my favorite. The kids got up and sang a song about loving their papas (they say 'Papa' here instead of 'dad' or daddy). THEN, their dads came up on stage and did their own dance. It was AWESOME! Everyone loves Bollywood here - and you'll almost never find a person that doesn't like to dance - so you can imagine the papas were dancing their hearts out!

It was awesome! They were all really into it! They even had glittery confetti falling from the sky during their performance!

At the end, the dads picked up their kids and swung their little legs around - it was hilarious!

So after a few performances, the lady that started the school showcased some of the other things she has going on in the city. She's quite an impressive lady! She has some sports teams. They came up and did an awesome performance.

She also has a roller skating group & a gymnastics group. The roller skating cracked me up!! Their uniforms were hilarious too!

She also runs an NGO (Non Government Organization) to help out kids with special needs in our city. She has one school for kids with special needs too and they came up and did an awesome Bollywood dance!

You'd think that since this is a preschool performance, that the kids would sing "Twinkle Twinkle" type songs - but instead they all danced to Bollywood songs! It was awesome! For each performance they had some new and different elaborate props in the background - it was crazy!!

It was definitely impressive and VERY fun! I can't wait until next year when Aashini is performing in it! So fun!!!

So, as Aashini says: "School, FUN!" :)