TwinkleToes ... I feel like you could be writing about my dd (now 5.5). She and your daughter share so many of the same qualities (reading at two, early math, amazing memory) -- right down to the May birthday!
I do not have the perspective of some of these parents of older children, but I can share my experience of having dd in kindergarten right now.
Unlike many others, I did not have a great experience with a play-based preschool, but I think that was more due to a poor fit between dd and her teacher. DD also did not find any of the other children in the class to be stimulating as playmates and that prompted her (in her "spirited" kind of way) to find other ways to keep her brain occupied ... which got her into trouble almost daily.
I was really worried that dd was getting the wrong message about school. Even at the age of three. That she would think school wasn't fun. Or that she was "bad" at it. Or a behavior problem. So I pulled her out.
We are lucky enough to live near a gifted private school and we were able to enroll her there. To me, the best part about the preschool experience at the gifted school was how deeply they delved into their units of study (and dd gobbled up every fact), how busy they kept the kids (no time to get into mischief) and the peer group. She is still there now in kindergarten, and is able to subject accelerate in math and reading, all while staying a kindergartner. I, too, worried about her maturity when it came to skipping a grade. This seems like the best of both worlds.
You say you live in an upper middle class district. Are there any gifted schools there? Have you had any experience with other gifted kids in your area? I would imagine they are out there. I've had luck finding some at science camps, or special library programs with science-y topics that appeal to my dd. Even if those kids are quite older than your dd, their parents can provide invaluable information.
Good luck!
This was our experience too. Tried a social preschool and found it was not a good fit. My DD is an August baby and our state cutoff is September 1, so we too have the concern of being the youngest in the class even without a grade skip. Though DD has always been a mature little girl and has never had discipline issues (knock on wood), plus she is incredibly tall for her age so people assume she is much older than her age.
We chose an academic route instead of the social preschool and though we made this switch 2 months ago I have been happy with the way DD has responded. We also knew that if we did make this change we needed to commit to the private school route since her school is academically 2 years ahead. Even with the advancement of the academics we were still concerned it wouldn't be enough but since she is being challenged by learning a foreign language due to it being full immersion it really seems to be a great fit. We also talked to the school about acceleration for if and when she does master the language barrier and am happy to report that the school is 100% behind acceleration.
Please don't think I am pushing private over public but just sharing our choice especially since we started in a social preschool and realized quickly how bad of a decision that was for us. This led us to realize a few things. 1) The social preschool feeds into the public kindergarten which gave me an idea of what level the kindergarten really is at and how bored DD would be. 2) For my DD she doesn't respond to the usual reward system. Her need to accomplish a task comes from within. It was during the whole social preschool that a light went off and it made sense to me. Because of her internal drive it was essential for us to keep her in a place that motivated her because without this we were experiencing the babyish ways and the arguments of kids her age don't do ... It sets the stage for dumbing down (especially in girls) and we clearly saw our DD headed down this path. And if she only showed this attitude in school I might have not been too concerned but it crossed over into everything. The minute she stepped into a challenging environment we got our DD back.
