Planning.

Luke has a strong desire for control.  He really thrives in decision making and any way that he can do it (whatever "it" is)for himself, or be in charge of his own life in any way.
Obviously this creates some great struggles between he and I!  While we do battle over the big things I've found that giving him as much of the small things as I can (while still keeping us in our proper roles) really goes a long way here at home.

We were finding that me giving Luke his assignments day-to-day or as we go along was actually a frustration for him.  Solution: Daily Schedules.

At the table

Luke's schedule

By putting the tasks in little boxes across the page I have also given him the ability to choose what order he does his school in as well.  He has really liked this aspect of the planner and I love the way it fosters time management skills.
He gets great satisfaction by crossing off his boxes.  And I so appreciated the way this keeps us on task and keeps our context for our Monthly Focuses and Weekly Themes that I went ahead and made schedules for Joel too!

Joel's schedule

Joel always likes to be like his big brother!

Another home school lesson here is that you can be constantly evolving, finding out what works and what doesn't work best for you and your individual child (-ren). The challenge to really know them! Isn't that exciting!?