Stretching the My Father's World 5-Year Plan to 7 Years

MFW has a Multi-Age Family Cycle that is supposed to take five years to complete.  However...after having gone through this cycle once, I have determined that it might be better for us to do it in seven years.  This way, each child will go through each year of the cycle once (instead of repeating two of them...which isn't bad, but I will explain my reasons).

Why?  I feel a bit rushed if I do it in five.  I want to be able to go off on a bunny trail if we want to and not panic about catching up or not getting everything done.  Now, don't get me wrong, MFW has a great scheduling system.  I'm sure that most families probably don't feel this way, but...I'm a laid-back southerner at heart (hahaha...even though I grew up in Michigan...I lived in Pensacola for twelve years, though), and I want to relax my homeschool a bit.

I don't want to go so far with relaxed homeschooling that I don't have structure, though.  I'm either not ready for that, or the Lord just isn't leading me that way.  I just want learning to be more fun...not stressful and feeling like, "WE HAVE TO FINISH THIS WEEK'S WORK OR I'M A FAILURE!"  I refuse to let that happen anymore. RE...FUSE.

So, I've divided 5 years by 7 and came up with 0.71.  Okay, I can do that.  As long as I do at least, oh, let's round it up to...75% of a year's worth of curriculum in one year without skipping anything that I feel we are led to do -- we don't do every project recommended by MFW...in fact, they say you probably shouldn't try to do every project and that they don't even do every project with their own family! -- I will be happy.

The homeschool law for our state requires us to do at least 175 days of school.  If we complete 25.5 weeks of the curriculum per year (that's about 75% of a year's worth) or 127.5 days (that's 25.5 weeks times 5 days of school each week -- are you confused?), then we will have about 47.5 days of "going off on a bunny trail" days!  Cool!  We could watch a movie about what we are learning...go on a field trip...explore further...whatever we want!  Love it.

Pretty good idea...don't you think?