My DS7 was very much in line with what you describe until he was around 5. Free-form exploring his still a big need of his; focus for him follows interest, also another commonly reported gifted characteristic. We seemed to have lucked out with his pre-school as they had a lot of hands on interactives that illustrated science concepts and those were things that really engaged him. It wasn't a Montessori program, and oddly Montessori sounded perfect philosophically, but when we looked at the programs they were oddly inflexible and dogmatic.
