Monday, May 24, 2010

My Two New Best Friends

Orange chicken sauce and sight words are my two new best friends. Let me explain.
Ania has been able to pick out her name from a page full of text for a long time now. But more recently she has been pointing out her sisters and brother's name too. So last week I made her some flash cards with all 5 kids' names, and sure enough, she gets them right every time. This ability to recognize sight words is a welcome discovery. Besides her speech delay she is showing some cognitive delays also and the thought of teaching her to read had crossed my mind with a little apprehension.

So, the next day we walked into her preschool room and Su, her teacher, was looking at a paper at her desk. Ania went up to her, looked at the paper, pointed at one small word on the page and said, "Does that say Chloe?" (one of her classmates) Both Su and I were surprised. I started telling Su about her flashcards at home. Meanwhile, Ania walked over to the place they start their morning circle time on the floor. The usual drill is that each child has a large card with their name on it, the cards are spread out in a circle, each child finds his/her name and sits in their place. Ania had picked up the stack of ten or eleven name cards. She read the first two names. I went over and asked her each card's name. She got every one of them! Chloe, Carlos, Ambrose, Erica, Uriel, Macia, etc. Even the new kid! They had never worked on teaching the kids to read each other's names. She just picked it up. I can't tell you how excited I was! Sight words, here we come!!! Go, Ania!

And then there is the "Mia is new Favorite Person" news. She cooked dinner the other night. All by herself! She put on the rice in the rice cooker. Cut up the chicken and cooked them in the pan. Cut up tomatoes, fresh basil and mozzarella cheese and poured the balsamic vinegar dressing on them. Poured the orange sauce over the chicken. THEN came the creme brulee (from a box) for dessert. I instructed her the whole way, but did almost none of the prep. I welcome the fledgling cook to the kitchen!

6 comments:

Brenda said...

LOVE love love to hear about "sight words"! Can she read "Aunt Brenda"? Better practice cuz we're coming up next weekend!

Ania can teach me how to make orange chicken any day. Better yet, she can just make it for me. Thomas will contribute by making the toast.

Annie said...

You have the BEST daughters! :)

Through the Sea Glass said...

OH! PRAISE THE LORd! I am soo happy about Ania!!!! Ah, so happy. And MIA! Quite the helper she is! Do you have the torch or whatever to do the top of the creme brule? (SP?)

Kristine said...

Yes! We have the torch. But Mia's daddy did that part. :o) My mom gave me a creme brulee set for Christmas a year and a half ago. I hope, when I finish getting everything organized in this new house, that I can spend some time cooking fun things like creme brulee from scratch and I want to learn to make focaccia bread for paninni sandwiches. Wish you were here, Kat, I would have you over and we could do it together!

. me . said...

wow! i'm so impressed with Ani! That's awesome! :)

And go mia! she can take over all my big sister responsibilities while i'm gone...not that i really ever cooked dinner, but you know...:P

cindy p said...

Yes, I love your new rug in the family room.... (I read two posts in one day)-

Soooo sweet to hear the 'little happy's' at the Thomas' house :) The girls are getting so old!

Can Ania come and read 'Find the Big Dog' to Ollie while Mia shows my girls how to make orange chicken some time? ;)