Busy Boy Goes to School

Several of you have busy little boys like our Joel. He preferred motion to stillness from the womb! Once he learned to walk, he never stopped.

So when it came to schooling, I knew we would struggle with a conventional 6-hour-desk day of learning ( you may recall...).
Here's an update on how my kinesthetic second grader is doing at his desk:

- The older we get, the better time we have had being able to focus for short periods sitting at his desk. Good thing too! The older we get, the more material there is to cover!

- To ease his issues with focusing for longer periods, last spring (end of First Grade) we slowed down his math. He is no longer a full year ahead of grade level, but he is less frustrated and more confident. With a summer birthday, just turning 7, he is extremely young for Second Grade this year, so we'll see where that goes.

- One way we continued to get him enough physical activity, was to have him run laps around the house between subjects. We never skipped his recess time, and it was mandatory to spend recess outside unless it was raining. Then he could play Wii inside. I also used to divide up his math page into 4-5 sections. We called it 'Travel Math': #1-5 sit in the bathtub; #6-10 on the couch; #7-15 in the hallway and #16-20 on the top bunk. He loved this funny way of doing his math practice in so many 'weird' places!

- Joel's reading really took off over the summer and while he doesn't LOVE it obsessively like his brother, he is a good reader and enjoys reading for his little sister. This fall I began to notice he would read something well on one page and get distracted halfway through a second page, his voice trailing off while his mind was on the pictures or something else. We are not sure if he inherited the ADHD tendencies, but we have taken him off all dairy to see if his focus improves. So far, it seems to be working (3 weeks now).

So my not-so-little Busy Boy Joel is able to sit for an hour at a time through a normal school morning and complete his work without stress and frustration!! This is so exciting to me. Part of this success is due to 'just growing out of the wiggles' and part of it could be cutting dairy foods. I don't really care which, as long as it works and we can get some work done!

Not surprisingly, his least favorite subject is still handwriting, and his most favorite subject is science (hands-on experiments!).

Busy Boy SITS in School!