Thanks to everyone for the great suggestions - both about resources and about strategies for coping. As it happens, a lot of this began with the Schoolhouse Rock video that Fitzi mentions. DW and I had watched those little pieces as children and were delighted to discover, shortly after DS was born, that they were available on DVD. Practically before he could talk DS knew how to count by 3s because of the song "Three is a magic number". He absolutely loved it. Who knows whether he loved the song because of the numbers or he loves numbers because of the song, but in any case there's no going back now. Finally, yesterday, I broke down and printed out a multiplication chart for him; we had to take it away from him so he could focus on eating his dinner.
I do have a quick and happy update. DW and I met with the director of DS's school this morning, and he is being very sensible about the whole thing. He said explicitly that he wants DS to feel comfortable with his interests, and he wants to provide an environment in which they can flourish. The new teacher will plan to watch him carefully for the first month or so to get a sense for what kinds of things he is interested in, and then try to work with him in those areas. He did say that he thinks it's important not to allow him to get "ghetto-ized" - to become interested only in numbers and nothing else - but that seems quite sensible to me. We'll see how it all works in practice, but I'm hopeful.
BBDad
