Adjustments.

Maybe it's the tornado that hit our neighborhood during the first week of school, or maybe it's getting used to the new schedule, or maybe I've assigned too much, but my new 4th-grader is frustrated.  He didn't get any play time this week, he insisted.  He doesn't like starting schoolwork right after breakfast.  He has to work practically until Daddy gets home.

The truth is I almost always need to tweak the workload in the first couple of weeks.  We have new subjects, new and more challenging workbooks, and frankly I expect a lot of him.  But my desire is for him to be done with his work by tea-snack time around 3:30 or 4 every day, with a good hourlong break for lunch and play in the middle, and so I will be taking a good hard look at the amount of stuff I'm having him do MWF.  Last year I had him do 4 math lessons a week (Saxon) and I have been trying to have him do 5 this week — too much?  Should I shave some more of the problems off the lesson?  Have I assigned too much reading?  Should I cut back on the morning chores he's supposed to do?  Or is the problem on his end, his attention is drifting? 

I was too preoccupied with getting my own stuff done this past week to really pay attention and diagnose the specific trouble — this coming week, I must.  But I better not let him get wind of this — I mean, that IF he keeps not finishing his work, I'm probably going to give him less of it to do.

I seem to have gotten the level about right for the new kindergartener, though.  Well, I've been through that one before.