Instead of having the two big boys work together on as many subjects as possible, I let them move ahead at their own pace, and work in two different rooms.

I was afraid it wouldn't be as interesting to them if they weren't doing it together.  Sterling is an auditory learner and has to discuss, discuss, discuss, too.   They may have missed that a bit, but they appreciated that I wasn't rushing one or letting one skip work to get to the same place in the schedule. 

The best part of all was that Verdi was much less distracted.  He had his best day so far, today, and I'm sure the separate workstations was the reason.