Teaching US History to our British Raised Children

My children are getting to the age where they can start learning about US history, mainly the 8 year old, and in light doses the 4 and 5 year olds. But I'm not a teacher, I'm not sure where to begin. Is/has anyone been doing this with their children that can offer some tips or resources to give me some ideas? Above all, I want it to be fun and interesting, not formal.

I was at a civil war re-enactment back home in May, and picked up some paperdolls in period costumes for the girls, thought they might come in handy. I thought the school holidays would be a good time, keep them busy with printed colouring pages and what not, themed to the topic at the time.

Maybe something to keep just for school holiday time? A chronological order that repeats yearly but gets more involved?

There is a series of books called "American Girls" and each series details the lives of a little girl during a certain period in American history (e.g. Colonial period, Civil War, Victorian era, 1940s) and they are pretty cool.  They also have dolls of the characters you can buy with all sorts of clothes and accessories (although this can get pricey!).  But the books might make nice bedtime stories for your girls.  I would imagine you could get them pretty cheaply on Amazon.

Scholastic books also has a site for teachers with all sorts of primary school projects for different grade levels, and topics including American history.  You can see what the first Thanksgiving was like and go aboard the Mayflower, learn about U.S. presidents and Martin Luther King Jr. It looks very interactive, and might spark your creativity further:

http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/

What a great idea Leah!

Thanks balmerhon.

Good ideas hummingbird, thanks. Found a link on scholastic back to www.plimoth.org, which has gotten more and more educational and interactive children's material, been on that site before. I think it will help that I had an ancestor in the New Plimoth colony, a 12-14 year old boy that crossed on the Pinta (or the Nina(?), without his family!), so it's looking like a possibly good place to start, making it more personalised in following his life and maybe more interesting since he was just a boy. Trying to think of a family film which depicts pilgrim life tho, not coming up with any.

Little House on the Prairie will be a good one to use at some point.