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.

Unfortunately, neither boy cares what their handwriting looks like. They see written work as something that needs to get done and over with as quickly as possible. They will happily colour in or draw for extended periods of time but the focus and control needed to form letters correctly is too much for them right now.

I have real problems with both my sons (11 & 8) handwriting and am unsure if trying to change the way they write at this stage is going to work. My eldest (ASD) writes in cursive which I can't stand. I kept telling the school that I didn't want them to teach him to join his letters until he could form them correctly first but they forged ahead and now he has messy, often illegible handwriting. He doesn't form all his letters correctly and has a tendency to rush which just makes it worse. He is slightly better when he doesn't write cursive but he's done it for so long he quickly reverts back to what he's used to. His brother (dyslexic) has equally poor handwriting. He joins some letters but mostly doesn't. He holds his pencil wrong but any attempts to correct him have him complaining that his hand hurts so I don't bother. He has to really focus to keep his letters smallish and on the line. He starts letters at the bottom near the line rather than the top for example. My five year old has better writing in all honesty. I have been trying them out with some handwriting sheets the past couple of days which they are happy to do but I am wondering if I will ever see any improvement or will they always have hard to read handwriting. I feel like they are too old to change now since they've both been in school since age 4 and picked up bad habits that no teacher ever seemed bothered to correct.

Although she can read, she can't do it with ease and therefore avoids it as much as possible. I have offered her more simple books, with large font and less pages but she calls them baby books and doesn't want to try but in my mind it's preferable to her not reading anything at all. She simply can't manage age appropriate books, they're too wordy and she either won't know what a decent portion of the words mean or can't pronounce them correctly which makes her feel stupid. I have mentioned audiobooks to her this evening and she agreed to give them a try.

Oh I 100% have trouble following things when listening to them. I have to write things down to understand them. When I work with the kids, if they come to me with an issue I can't listen to them tell me a Maths problem or whatever, I have to look at the book/worksheet and make sense of it myself. My eldest gets frustrated with me, she always complains and says 'why do you have to come and look? Don't you just know?'. Even if I DO know, seeing it helps clarify that I'm correct. I have been working on the meaning of words since she can sometime spell words but not know the definition. Also I find if I explain things and it has too many steps she just gets this look and I know she is lost but she'll be nodding or saying yes like she understands. There is a reason why when people have very sick kids/relatives they fundraise money to go the US or other places in Europe. The NHS is a great idea and something we depend on but it's pretty basic to meeting everyday problems. Did you break something? We can fix it. Need meds? We can do that, but when it comes to mental health, learning disabilities, things along those lines we are pretty behind the times. Whenever I am on forums and read about all the things you guys test for and have in the US I'm kind of lost. I've never heard of half the things you can get your children checked for. I'll take a look to see if I can find the things you've mentioned.

Thank you. It's hard to find people in RL to talk to about things especially because my family are pretty against homeschooling and my mother seems to think that schools have all the answers even though she has seen firsthand how much difficulty I had with getting DS11 the help he needed (she went to a lot of the school meetings).

Thanks. Last year was a tough year. I had concerns and difficulties with my children both in and out of school but felt like I was getting nowhere with anything. This year I had made a promise to myself to get everything sorted out for everyone. Onwards and upwards!

I don't know how I would get anything other than a basic hearing test done. It's all any of my children have had. As I said before, I have found previous Speech & Language assessments very limited and I wouldn't know how to go about getting a more involved evaluation. Audiobooks aren't something that I have ever properly introduced to the children. Personally, I don't like them, I'm an avid book reader and don't really like the idea or someone else's voice in my head painting the picture for me but I know a lot of people enjoy them, and I had brought the idea up but DD never actually listen to one. I think I will try to get her to try one and see if she changes her mind. Going the private route for evaluations/assessments is something I am reluctant to do as I have more than one child that may need them in all honesty, I don't think I could afford to do all that I would need to do.

I think I shall implement a routine that involves a lot of rotating of children as I have a few that will require repeated breaks.

I have had two other children who had Speech & Language intervention when they were younger - DD7 which it turned out had glue ear in both ears and had grommits put in, she still doesn't hear great but her speech is fine now, although she tends to talk too fast. Also, DS8 who now speaks very eloquently. Where I am, they seemed to focus more on younger children and they didn't seem to offer much more than ensuring the children could speak clearly. I honestly don't know where I could get referred that would offer a more indepth assessment.

To be honest, comprehension difficulty is a recurring theme within most, if not all, of my children. They have a tendency to be very literal.