Better today

Right now he's watching a documentary on the human body.

It's clear that he seems to do best with about ten minutes of instruction followed by 20 minutes of practice.  After 20 minutes of practice he is more easily distracted and begins to fidget.  If I'm not paying attention he's completely lost.

He assured me he could work on sequential spelling for 45 minutes but I noticed after 30 minutes that we were wasting our time.  Out of the 30 minutes, we spent some time looking up some of the words that he didn't understand.  I also discovered that if I can show him several pictures online to represent the word, his retention is better.  For example, we were working on manner - manor.  He struggled with the word "manor" for days until I showed him several pictures of famous historical manors online.  We were also working on mooed - mood, and he struggled with that.  I showed him several pictures of mood rings, talked about what they were and how they worked.  Next, I demonstrated showing how several animal sounds are spelled, showing each of them in past tense.

meow   - meowed

howl - howled

moo - mooed

After that it was clear that he knew it.

So it really does look like a total of 30 minutes per class, then we switch gears.  I don't know what he should do between classes, but I think that exercising, completing small tasks like chores, or getting organized are good ideas.

Playtime is NOT a good idea between classes.  If he starts playing games or watching junk television between classes, he loses momentum and tends to have an attitude problem when it's time to get back to work.

He had leftovers for lunch - dino kale salad with avocado lemon dressing, mixed with quinoa lightly seasoned with turmeric and curry.  Nutrition is clearly a big part of this too.

I'd like to see if we can gently bump up his attention span and the length of his classes a little at a time. 

Today he's had a total of 30 minutes of spelling, 30 minutes of math, 30 minutes of reading comprehension and 30 minutes of grammar.

In the Comprehensive Curriculum book for the 4th grade, we are starting from the beginning in language arts but it's clear that he's more advanced than that in math.  He demonstrated that he knows how to do rounding and estimating.  He can do long division but still needs to work on some of his math facts. We are skipping a great deal of the math section because he demonstrates that he knows it and is ready to move on.  I'd like to see some increased fluidity in his math skills.  He seems to tire easily in math.