This is where my 8yo is at now and it’s infuriating. He is in class all day at 2nd grade level and is given homework at 4th+ grade level but that means we our effectively his actual teachers. This also results in, as you say, everything is trivially easy or all of a sudden hard which has in general given him a complex around mildly difficult things and practice in general.
For kids who are behind, they solve this by throwing a lot more personnel at the problem, to the point that some kids have one-on-one assistants/tutors follow them around all day. Good luck getting budgets increased enough to do the same for gifted kids, though.
This is why many parents enroll their kids to Kumon. Kumon gives kids the about of work for their right level - whether that's a 2nd grader is ahead and at a 4th grade level, or a 2nd grader who is behind and starts at a 1st grade level. At the same time just because a kid is at the 4th grade level in math...maybe their reading is in 2nd grade.
With traditional schools all the kids are throw together. This results in kids who lag behind to further lag behind because they can't keep up with the class and lose confidence in themselves. A kid who is ahead gets bored and lose interest in school and never gets challenged to maintain that independence.
My 7th grader is in 9th grade math and I feel this. The homework load is the killer and I end up being the teacher. I like the teaching part but it’s still exhausting.
I guess it depends upon exactly what you mean. But based upon my 2nd grader, and from what I've heard from other 2nd grade parents, this is pretty normal for a 2nd grader, regardless of how gifted they are or aren't.
My 2nd grader can burn through material from the first half of the year. But current material... good luck getting her to do it. Difficult work makes people uncomfortable, and most young kids don't like being uncomfortable.
