Yes my ds I can tell thinks something is wrong with him because he can see he doesn't enjoy the parts of school he's told he should. After yet another lecture on peaceful calm behavior he came home and said, "I only feel peaceful when I'm running". We've had to go into damage control mode, making a point to let him know how we love that he is "peppy". I don't see how to avoid it, homeschooling him would drive us crazy.
On puzzles, does his Montessori have the big wood set of country puzzles. DS gets a lot of mileage out of those, has done them all but is now using the pieces as imaginary characters in a story, connecting all the puzzles into new worlds, "Orangelandia", etc.
There's really no way to make DSs classroom truly engaging for him, it would have to look like our house - Montessori is the antithesis of the entropic mess we live in. So there's just going to be friction. For us it's still better than the alternatives. And it does challenge his ability to make do with what he's given.
