Schooling, mostly together, balanced, or mostly independent?

[MissRubyandKen]

We've changed our patterns of how we do schooling more than once. Sometimes its a gradual evolution, sometimes its a stark change because something isn't working or something else may work better. There's been times when less momma participation seemed necessary, such as the birth of my littlest. We've settled into a pattern of them working mostly independently. I've noticed it has its positives, but would like to strive towards a more balanced, or possibly even more mostly together days for next year. I sure hope this works out because most of the materials I'm planning to purchase seem to require teacher/student interaction.

I'm wondering how everyone else organizes their school days. Is it mostly together, balanced, or mostly independent? What factors come in to play, age, materials, circumstances? What works for your family and why? Do you feel one approach has merits more strongly than another? What approach do you feel benefits your student(s) most?

[mom2ponygirl]

I think there is merit in all of those approaches, and different times and different subjects may require a different approach. My tween daughter can go from a cuddle bug one day to an eye rolling, don't need anybody, the next. So we tend to do more together work on her cuddly days and I'm fine with leaving her alone to explore when she is having an eye rolling day. LOL

[momto4plus4]

We've had a more independent experience which seems to work well for us. She (9) typically does her work independently unless she has questions and then I review it. If she needs to do corrections, she'll sometimes do them alone or sometimes together but if she's struggling at all with anything then we do it together. I've found that this works best for her but it may be because of her learning style. She has adhd with an auditory processing issue so being separated in her room gives her the best focusing ability and she's grasping concepts well because she's figuring them out on her own. I am trying to figure out ways to do more togetherness as well though but probably not as much until after baby is born (any day now).

[cappuccinosmom]

For my kindergartener all his sit-down work is with me.

For my 2nd grader, he actually has a lot of independant work. He has reading/LA online, and math, and has reached a point where I can give him instructions and an example and he'll do a worksheet completely on his own. He seems to like that a lot, actually.