It's a bit silly to give words like abstruse and affidavit to a 7-year-old. Children that age won't use those words and will just forget them.
Really, doesn't it depend on the child? I suspect that in a HG classroom you'll find a wide range of reading and vocabulary levels, especially in 2nd grade. My ds13 could absolutely have understood these words when he was 7, and he used words like that in his vocabulary when speaking. He was also reading high school and college level books and comprehending what he read. My HG+ dd9, otoh, struggles with vocabulary (she has a reading LD)... yet that doesn't mean she doesn't also have needs that can and probably should be met in a gifted classroom.
I think we often hear the phrase here: "If you've seen one gifted child, you've seen one gifted child." In any given gifted classroom, chances are you'll see a wide swath of abilities.
My take on it is - we seek out gifted classrooms for our children for several reasons:
1) A chance to learn at their ability level and not have to be bored and held back by learning at a slower-than-their-brain-works pace
2) Intellectual stimulation - giving them the chance to really *use* their brains
3) Challenge - so that they don't coast through school never encountering challenge
4) A chance to be with intellectual peers
I can't imagine it's possible to come up with a homogeneous classroom of HG students where everyone is at the same level of ability across the board - chances are some of the students are going to be way ahead in vocabulary and some students are going to be way ahead in math and some might be semi-ahead across the board (compared to other gifted students) etc.
I would give the teacher a chance and see what unfolds with the vocabulary. If it proves to be too much of a challenge for your ds, talk to the teacher and work out of game plan. Just as you would watch and observe and then advocate if you felt your ds wasn't being challenged in the classroom.
Best wishes,
polarbear
ps - re your older dd not having homework in the gifted program and your ds bringing home homework - that might mean the program has changed, but I suspect it might also simply be due to having a different teacher.
