ColinsMum, I completely missed your post somehow... It's so hard to clearly define what I feel is wrong. Because I DO believe in playbased preschool and I DO believe that they can self extend beautifully... The center is really great in lots of ways, and they seriously do NOT need me to give them resources. I can not think of what I would give them that they don't have. I would not even give them puzzles, as I am aware that the puzzles I would want to give them are not practical for a preschool environment or I would have sent some in. The issue with puzzles is their complete failure to identify WHY DD would not persist at puzzles they presented her, or why she avoided participating in any of the extension activities they tried to engage her in once they had decided she was old enough to be ready for them. The gifted kids are the ones they are labeling not ready or immature because they are pitching too low and not engaging them.
The issues are subtle but over the course of two years we are not the only parents that have gone from delighted to deeply disenchanted.
I think what it boils down to is that the preschool is not a purely free play based program but rather has a lot of directed / planned developmental play activities. And those activities are carefully planned around age appropriate norms, which is not very developmentally appropriate for a gifted child. The staff feel very strongly that it is not appropriate to teach children anything overtly academic - such as reading, writing, maths, etc and their feelings on this are clear enough to my DD that she believes that she should not participate in activities like this at preschool. I don't believe that they should be trying to teach the children academic skills, but I do think they should be supporting the children who are seeking those experiences and I certainly don't think that the children should be getting the vibe that is inappropriate to read at preschool.
The vast majority of children going to my childrens' school go to the schools attached preschool, and are expected to go for 2 years. Upwards of 95% the children the first year of school have come from spending 2 years together in preschool, there is a genuine social disadvantage to not going to the preschool if you are going to the school. But 2 years in this environment is just too long for a gifted child and acceleration out of the preschool is generally not an option because of how many years in advance school spots are offered and accepted. And if they accelerated every gifted child that would be too regular an occurrence... Which is presumably why we, and other parents, are getting the run around.
