I have decided to focus on the 3Rs in the mornings and then do the one subject thing in the afternoons. That way I can group the children up and teach them more or less the same thing - going deeper with the older few obviously. My 4 year old has been asking to do work more and more since I brought all of them home so I need to make things easier for me on a daily basis and I think this makes the most sense right now.

I used to have a big issue with DS8 (almost 9) taking food when I wasn't around. This was when he was around 6 or 7 years old. He would get up super early before the rest of the house woke up and I would find food missing, wrappers stuffed in places. He had no reason to steal, my kids have always been more than well fed but it was like a compulsive need to do it for quite some time. He always seemed to be hungry. I was concerned for a time that something else might be going on but as he got older the food went missing less often until last year he stopped altogether. He would always own up to taking the food as he cant lie and it wasn't always junk food, fruit went missing too. I don't know if it was an immaturity thing or what but none of my other children took food like this. I mean, we had the odd cookie go missing but not a daily raid like him lol.

I don't think everything requires a label or intervention however having struggled with children who have additional needs, I know how unhelpful it is to be told by people that you are simply a bad parent or your child is 'choosing their behaviour' when something else entirely is going on.

Ok I think I've made up my mind to go ahead with focusing on the 3Rs for the mornings and then leave the afternoons for only one subject. I am unsure yet how long to focus on the afternoon subject, maybe a week at a time. I think more and some could get fed up. So perhaps week one - history, week two - science, week three - geography and week four - art. It can't hurt to try.

That is exactly the reaction I get 'But I thought we were done. How many more books do I have to do?!' I am definitely leaning towards cutting down my days to maybe two subjects, at least until I get a few of them independent with more things. It's too much to keep track of and I don't want us slipping behind.

I learnt quickly that Maths is not a subject that any of them can do independently (even those that are good at Maths) and I doubt any of them are ever going to be enthusiastic about doing it but I have made it clear to them it's one of the most important skills they need in life even if they don't realise it yet. They can all read and write, to varying degrees, other than the youngest two but only three of them read or write for pleasure and of their own accord. I doubt that will ever change but I accept that.

Sometimes it can take an hour for some to complete one sheet of relatively simple Maths.

I had thought about that - the not liking of a subject...I suppose I could cut those days shorter or do two in one day. I'm already changing my mind :confused1: Trying to figure out what works for 6 kids, a 4 year old who wants to do school work now too and wrestle with a lively 3 year old is tough going. :lol:

Thanks for all your replies. Maths is not a strong subject for most of my children - I have two who pick up concepts very quickly and I have no concerns about but the rest I have basically had to go all the way back to the beginning. The school they came from was poor in that they never seemed concerned when the children fell behind and just kept moving forward so my kids got further and further behind. I think we will have to keep Maths to some extent daily for the above reason but the rest I might try to do on a loop. There are so many things I had planned that I haven't got around to doing because the basics seem to take so long. I don't want to lose interest myself and some of the more enjoyable subjects (for me) like History we never seem to have time for.

I am not sure where I saw it but I remember someone saying they focused on one topic per day instead of trying to cram in several things and getting behind or stressing the children. For example, Monday is Science, Tuesday is Maths, Wednesday is History etc. Do any of you do this and does it work for you? I am thinking about it particularly because I have some children who struggle to stay focused and we don't always get done in a day what I want them to.

She doesn't have any diagnosed LD. It's very hard to get assessed if you haven't had a school highlight difficulties and when she was in school they kept telling me she was fine. She learned a lot of ways of masking her difficulties (by her admission) by copying other children's work, getting teaching assistants to help, things like that.

With mine, when I tried typing programmes and games they didn't respond well at all - they complained that it slowed them down because they had to think too much about what letters they wanted to type. I didn't bother at all after that and just let them type/play. In time, just from Skyping each other or talking to other children within games they enjoyed, their typing speed and accuracy went through the roof. My eldest three type almost as fast as me now.

Honestly, right now, I don't have set hours. This will probably change once I'm more settled (in the past week I've gone from three to five at home) but we start once breakfast is out of the way, the time will vary depending on how early everyone starts waking up and we finish once I have ticked off what I want done for the day. Some kids might be all done by 2pm, some might still be doing things at 6pm. My younger two don't take many breaks (enthusiastic and motivated little workers) whereas the older ones like to space their work out. It doesn't matter to me when we finish, I will just clean, hoover, prepare meals etc in and around when I'm needed with one of the children.

Today I managed to get DD10 to read to me. She was reading pretty fluidly (granted it was slightly larger print and aimed at younger readers) but when she got stuck on a word about a page in she sighed and said I have no idea what is going on. I asked her what she meant and she replied, 'I am reading the words but I have no idea what this story is about'. This concerned me but also made it clearer why she has so much trouble being left to work independantly. It's like the information is going in but her brain can't make the necessary connections to make sense of the words she has read. She did some Maths problems and when she got some wrong, I showed her where she went wrong and then she was able to redo the same problems and get the answers correct so I know that the ability is there but she simply cannot seem to get there if she has to read through and understand by herself. I wanted to know if any of you had children with a similar problem and how you dealt with it. ​

Thank you everyone. I guess for now I will simply plug away with the handwriting, a litle each day and see what happens. All of the childen could do with improvement to some degree so I think I'll make it a thing for everyone so that the boys don't feel like I'm focusing only on them and resent doing it.