Hiya.
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We are a homeschooling family but our dd is only just entering kindy, so I haven't approached studying history with her yet, but I wanted to offer my perspective as a medievalist who deeply loves studying history. I think the absolute most important thing you can do to encourage an appreciation for history is to approach it from a fictional perspective. I remember being a child and wanting to know what it would have been like to live "back when": what did they eat, how did they dress, what chores did they do? Kids are often drawn to the minutiae of daily life, and actually, as a social historian, so am I! I haven't previewed SOTW yet myself but I have heard that it is very hands-on with activities and encourages this type of approach. I actually am very against "fact-based history" until high school age. I think before then it is really rather pointless and does a lot to create a distaste for history. It's also difficult to pinpoint facts, anyway, because even among historians there is huge disagreement over the meaning of sources. I know that Susan Bauer is a Christian and so presents Biblical history as historical fact, but I can say that even from a secular viewpoint, much of Old Testament history has been substantiated through archaeological means. For instance, fairly recently scholars have unearthed Egyptian hierglyphics that discuss Joseph, the Hebrew son of Jacob who was sold into slavery in Egypt and then rose to prominence in Pharoah's court. I was just reading a paper the other day discussing the historicity of the crossing of the Red Sea along with the archaeological evidence that Egyptian chariot wheels have been found in the location where Hebrew markers have been found, marking the spots of the crossing. Myth is so often in the eye of the beholder, actually. For instance, let's take Joan of Arc. Joan of Arc lived an extraordinary life in the early 15th century. As an illiterate, teenage peasant, and a female at that, she became the commander-in-chief of the national army of France, and her military campaigns are well-documented. The facts of her life seem other-worldly, mythical, and yet we have a huge body of factual evidence to prove otherwise: We have the transcript of her original trial as well as her posthumous trial of Reconciliation, as well as first-hand accounts of her life from people who knew her. If these sources were not extant, would we believe that Joan of Arc existed? And would it matter if we did not? My point really is that so much of "history" is actually quite fluid, which in many ways makes it more interesting and can spark some interesting projects and discussions as your children grow older (I would not recommend pointing this out to younger children, who are so often made uncomfortable by ambiguity). For younger children, any resource that discusses the daily lives of people in different places and periods and offers either fictional first-hand narratives or primary sourced stories from that culture will provide the best foundation, at least in my opinion. Starting in late middle school or early high school, I think history works best to work from as many primary resources as you can to create your own picture of history with perhaps a world civ text to use as an outline. However, this is more investigative and would be rather inappropriate in the elementary years. It seems to me that you could use SOTW as a basic text with activities and then get a few other resources from your local library, which sounds like what you're planning to do anyway. There is also a good popular archaeological journal called Biblical Archaeology Review, which has fascinating details about current archaology within Israel with lots of details and pictures that would be helpful to children studying the ancient Hebrews, and it is very inexpensive if I remember correctly. However, all periodicals--including National Geographic and the one I listed above--all have their own agendas and biases, as well. In the end, I agree with previous posters who said that you are really trying just to present a cross-section of a culture from a part of history, not trying to tease out facts, at least not at this age. That takes a lot of pressure off.
. But I know generally what happened, just not the specifics/dates.
