Homeschool World Forum

[Arif]

My family and I moved to Panama almost 2 years ago and decided to homeschool our son who is 4. We are confused about the online homeschooling programs that say our child has to be 5 before Sep XX. He turns 5 on Oct 1 and we think he is ready for kindergarten based on his current progress. Is there a way around waiting a year to be in comliance? We would rather not wait another year.
Also, we are trying to figure out what program to use since we are out of the country and plan to be here for the foreseable future. Do we just pick a state or the last state we were a residence in? We have a mail forwarding service that uses Doral, Florida so can we use that?

Thanks

[Theodore]

If the rules say he has to be 5 before September, and he turns 5 in October, you should be fine until next year. There's no need to wait, however - kindergarten is really just common sense things like letters, numbers, phonics, lots of messy and fun art stuff. You can do all that on your own, or buy a packaged kindergarten and/or phonics program that can be easily covered before next September. Most recently (like 9 years ago), we've used Calvert kindergarten and Sing, Spell, Read and Write. Calvert is rather dry in their later grades, but the kindergarten is good imho.

As for what address / rules to use, it all depends on how long you'll be staying. I don't know what the guidelines are, but I imagine that if you're staying in Panama longer than a year or so, you'll want to find out what the homeschooling regulations are there. Talk to the people at your military base (I assume you're military?) and see what they have to say.
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