DS6 is in K now but we were in your shoes a couple of years ago. First, don't feel bad about searching for information- ever. Second, remain aware that the information that you are gathering is only that- information. Your child is a person, a living being, and will change many times over right before your eyes. Research all possibilities but remain open to having to use any of them at any given time.
I called and emailed people from all over our school district starting when DS was about 3 yo. My basic question to each of them was "My son is doing X, Y, and Z already. He may be in your school in two years time. What would you do with this?" This simple question got me all kinds of information from "some things will just be easy for him" to and offer for early entrance to kindergarten with possible subject acceleration from there. What we ended up doing, instead, was enrolling at his 'regular' entrance age (5y9m) at a charter STEM school.
When we were going to before-school conferences I told DS to think of a question he wanted to ask the teacher (thinking 'Where's the cafeteria/bathroom' When is lunch?', etc). Instead when teacher asks him if he has any questions he blurts out "Is infinity really a number?" I'm pretty sure he was the only one asking THAT particular question.
Anyway, the school has a focus on science, which is his real passion. Also, despite not having a 'gifted' program per se or even an early entrance option, we ended up feeling like they would foster the kind of environment that we felt would be best for allowing him to feel comfortable in his interests and give him the opportunity to move ahead with differentiation as much as possible. About 1 month and a half into the school year he got bumped up to 2nd grade for both reading and math. He loves this arrangement and, for now, its working wonderfully.
Even though this arrangement is working for the time being I am always aware that we may need to change things at any time. Right now, DS is saying that he wants to go to 2nd grade next year and skip up to 3rd for math and reading. He's already testing at a mid-3rd grade reading level (up from mid-2nd in October)and is trying to do multiplication and division as well as negative numbers, fractions, etc... so I have no idea what level he'll test at or where we will end up having to place him next year. For now, we let him enjoy things as they are, expand on them at his request at home, and really just sit back and enjoy the show
Sit down, buckle up, and hold on. It's gonna be a wild ride and there's no map to show you where you're going.
P.S. I'm assuming I'm not the only one who firmly expected to have a kid, put him in school at 5, go through all 13 grades, have him graduate at 18, and then go to college, only to be shown in no uncertain terms that MY plans have absolutely no bearing on HIS education ;-)
