We never did any wierd hippy crap like that. In elementary school the gifted program was pretty unstructured, there were a few class projects but for the most part the tools were made available to us (lots of self paced things, plus ready access to the library) and we could learn what we wanted to. We had to set goals for every quarter and that was the source of our grades, but we were always told to leave room to "explore". We could kick back and read, even play with toys if we could figure out how it was "educational" (Rubik's Cubes and other puzzles were popular, as were some RC hovercraft one kid brought in, and the teacher gave every kid an issue of Games magazine for their birthday). The big thing was to let us fill our time without being a distraction, breaking the cycle of finishing a project the teacher thought would take an hour in 10 minutes and being bored for the next 50. If (when) we finished early we could go do something else, use the opportunity, which still helps me out today.
I did the same thing with my kids, only I called it homeschool.
Cindie