Socially, he prefers much older children, but my greatest fear has always been that older children in a group setting won't prefer him. Children can be cruel, especially as they get older.
I think it's great that you're so clued in to his needs when he is so young. I was quite blissfully ignorant of what to expect when my guy was 3.5yo.
I used to think older kids were cruel too when my son, like yours, craved friendships with much older children. But he's now almost 9 and I completely see his point of view. Although he loves his friends' younger siblings to bits, he has his own interests and likes/dislikes and there's little chance, extrovert that he is, that he'd spend hours playing with a 5yo or 6yo unless they are truly intellectual peers (emotionally my guy can be 4 or 5 lol).
Your K teacher sounds fabulous. However, I've had friends who were told similar things and found themselves having to pull their kids out a few months later because things just weren't working out the way they were promised. I sincerely hope this won't be the case for you.
I wanted to suggest, if you do eventually attempt to homeschool till he's 6, to be prepared to see him advance at such a rate that he'd far outstrip 3-4th grade public schoolers. We've homeschooled for 5 years now and because we've found some great friendships within the homeschool community, we've been very sheltered in the last few years. So sheltered that it shocks me when I do some research and find there's no way he could fit back into the system academically if something were to happen such that we couldn't homeschool anymore.
He's currently progressing at age=grade level, that is, he completed 8th grade as an 8yo and will start 9th grade as a 9yo. Writing is still an issue but this year he's shown the ability to show/write/prove math and produce output on par with what an average 8th grade public schooler will produce so I'm guessing his writing ability in other areas may follow suit given time and (nail-biting) patience.
Given that with these kids, they are usually able to conceptualize what is to be expressed and are just waiting for physical writing ability to catch up, and given that your child may not have special needs, he could begin to write at middle/ high school level at 2/3/4th grade age. Will your school district be able to accommodate that? It's tough!
I know that we chose acceleration because we homeschool. But I also spend so much time trying to give more breadth and depth to what he does. Good work ethic doesn't come easy and so much of the time my struggle is to model it for him. It's easy to forget though given what they can do that they're so young. I remember my own attitudes toward good work ethic developing only in my teens. My suggestion is to model it as much as you can for your child, and this includes allowing him to take his time with his work, enjoying it, learning to keep his curiosity and joy of learning alive.
It isn't as easy as we think lol. Good luck!
