John Muir Unit Study Ch 4

In this chapter, John discovers the Giant Sequoias. He also sees that they are being logged. Brother was a sad about this, but the fact that this happened so long ago provides some separation. In addition, Brother felt very empowered by John's actions to save the remaining trees.




Here is Brother's close up of the Giant Sequoias. He really wants to show the feeling of the size of the tree. He was really involved in the feeling.




And his summary.

John Muir Unit Study Ch 3

In chapter 3, John leaves his family and goes to University. He changed his name from Johnny to John. This really effected Brother. He was very interested in Johnny deciding that he had become a man.




This is a picture of the dome that John built his cabin by. Brother was very interested in the idea of having a little stream running through the hear of the cabin.




And the summary. Each day Brother takes more ownership of the summarizing process.

John Muir Unit Study Ch 2

In the second chapter Johnny Muir, his little brother and his father moved to America. The rest of the family follows once the farm is established. This was a hard chapter for me because Johnny had to leave his grandfather behind. I was supposed to do Tonglen Meditation on the story before sharing it, but I didn't have time before we started. So I was sad when I read about the leave taking. Fortunately, both of brother's sets of grandparents live here, so while he picked up on my upset, he wasn't particularly upset by it himself.



Brother is very interested in engineering - so he was mostly interested in the ship that Johnny and his family would have traveled on.



Here is the summary. He did a lot more of the summarizing this time around. He definitely has opinions about what should be said. We were running late today - so he only wrote one sentence. I finished off in the orange below.

John Muir Unit Study Ch 1

The Enki curriculum provides us with Sages stories. They are stories of wise people who started out a bit precocious but grew and developed. Beth suggested that we start with John Muir as he played in a castle when he was a boy and my children are both really into castles right now. It was a great suggestion. Brother could really see himself in Johnny when he was a boy and enjoyed experiencing Johnny growing into a man.




This is a picture the castle that Johnny and his brother played in when they were boys.




This is Brother's first official summary. I did most of the summarizing to provide an example. The next day, before we wrote down the summary, we edited it to be sure that everything Brother felt was important was included.

His writing as much improved. I write two sentences on the chalkboard and he has to copy it onto his paper. I also write the same two sentences down on a piece of paper which I set by him. He used to completely copy off of my paper. However, the visual therapy has really improved his tracking. He is able to copy completely off the board now, and actually seems to prefer it. Brother wrote in orange and I wrote in purple. Brother also corrects his work in purple.