Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Pre-school Preschool options?

We have a 3 year 3 months old, who I think is gifted/advanced in some way (though not to the extent that we'd have to worry about college at 13, like many here). We started visiting preschools/kindergarten options, hence my post. He is working on writing skills (sight reads and writes quite a few words, very elementary skills at putting sounds together - he still struggles with that); he works on 60-100 piece puzzles, he reads time to the hour very easily, his drawing appears to be 2 years ahead - indeed, his writing and drawing skills seem to fit right into kindergarten, at least from visiting kindergarten classrooms this week; they are miles and miles ahead of nursery kids'. He easily counts items to 20 and beyond, he is starting to understand the concept of addition (well, with crackers at least). BUT he is also growing up trilingually, with English being by far his weakest language (we speak to him in our own native languages). His speaking ability in his 2 main mother languages is behind relative to monolingual kids his age, but he can communicate; his English ability his very limited. We have 3 possibilities to consider. i) By far the cheapest option (15k), a school in his native language up to 8th grade; he would be one of the few native speakers. They might be willing to consider him for kindergarten next year (strictly speaking, due to the age cutoff, he'd have to attend nursery, not even pre-kindergarten, next year) - and even that might be too easy by then (his work right now seemed to fit right into kindergarten there). ii) the most expensive option (almost 30k a year once kindergarten starts), an English speaking pre-k (they might be willing to overlook the age-cutoff, which he misses by a week). Same problem with his academic skills - we saw the kindergarten portfolios there that looked like his work (and the teacher agreed with that when she saw his work). But at least he'd learn English in pre-k, and they do pull students out in smaller groups to do work, especially for reading. This school has lots of resources, some of which he'd really enjoy (lots of blocks, lego/duplo, 2 libraries...). We'd challenge him outside of school by teaching him reading and writing in his native languages. iii) a 25k per year school for the gifted (but from what we've heard, not for the truly genius kids - which he is clearly not). This is the only school where we thought that he was NOT currently (!) ready for kindergarten, and we would be very comfortable putting him into pre-k next year (they don't have an age-cutoff issue). They would teach the alphabet there in the first few months, but he'd be learning English. They work in small groups by ability throughout. He'd have to pass an IQ test before proceeding to kindergarten (which might be a challenge due to his English skills, and though they'd likely have improved a lot by this time next year, if he were to start school in Sept, it's a risk). Loved the school, great teachers, might be awfully challenging to teach reading and writing in his native languages in addition. Also, and perhaps most importantly, it would mean a 45 minute commute for us as we'd have to relocate there eventually, the other 2 schools are within walking distance. The native lang. and gifted schools go through 8th grade, the other through 12th. We could also keep him home for another year, sharing a nanny with his younger brother. Cheaper, more flexibility for us in terms of daytrips (our working hours are a bit flexible), no early mornings, fewer illnesses for another year...I would love to hear your thoughts what we should do if he were accepted at all three schools (we'd have very little time to think before having to make a decision once accepted).