Yes, take advantage of this time before school. Use it to let her explore and develop her interests and to build confidence and a positive view of herself. Once she hits school, she will need the strength to prevail, to maintain herself without trying to blend in, but to fit in enough that she can follow the routine.
When she hits school, she may be totally turned off, but if you are lucky, she may have a great teacher who encourages her to "extend" her assignments and take them where her mind wants to go. For example, if she is asked to color all the apples green and the cherries red, she can do that and then write a list of the similarities and differences. This is one way she can honor herself ---making the school work her own.
Another thing is to see if she can enjoy being with other children. If she has a really hard time with age mates, but thrives with older kids, you may be working toward grade skipping in the future, but if she finds satisfaction in play with age peers, you are looking toward more keeping her identity alive in her age grade level.
Although you may not have early entrance, scour your district website and see what they do. If it's a big school, you can call the office and even if you say who you are, you will still be anonymous at this point, so you can ask what they do with kids who come in reading and doing math above the 2nd grade level (not putting a level on your child, just giving a benchmark to go with).
Then relax for now. The K choice is IMO the most difficult decision parents of unusual kids have to make. It is the child's first real school experience and the first chance for the system to see our kids, and there's just so much at stake to get the relationship right. Use this time to get to know as much as you can and build your strength--but avoid anxiety. You simply cannot tell the future. Schools change, staff changes, principals who promise one thing can forget or be replaced. You just can't plan this early. So relax and gather info on the school choices in your area and let your child learn as she wishes.
I agree with MON. I also think you can give your child a huge leg-up by encouraging them to learn how to extend themselves academically without explicit direction, instruction, workbooks, or curriculums. This is something you can really focus on in those precious preschool years, especially when your DD has already mastered preschool skills.
It is one thing to know how to count by twos, it is another to recognize when your preschool teacher asks you to count a pile of pennies, it is appropriate and faster to count them by twos, or threes even. Or, when coloring a rainbow, you can use the right colors in the right order--even if you have to add a line to fit them all in.
These are skills that I think you can develop using a child-led approach--asking your child, what do you want to learn? What can we do with this? What else can you do? Keep on your toes. Learning is everywhere. Explore with them.
I have really enjoyed the preschool years. I think we are fortunate to not have to worry about academic stuff. We can focus on learning for the love of learning. I think DD loved preschool and preK at her play based school. She has learned a lot there that she could not learn at home despite learning nothing academically. And, we are really excited for kindergarten. We found a perfect fit for us at an independent school.
We read a ton. Now she is reading a ton, also. I used to alternate our visits to three different bookstores and two libraries to not appear as book crazy as we were. We also visit a lot of museums, especially when we travel. We are guided by her enthusiasm. And, I leave probably too much time to independent creative play. If I have learned one thing in raising her thus far, it is that she learns so much with just a little bit of boredom and open ended toys and materials. I purposefully keep out of her way.
