Doing World + US History at the same time

I know there are some of you out there who study both World and US History in the same time.  Can you share with me how you are doing this?  I am doing a lot of thinking and planning for dd who will be 6 and in “first grade” next year.  We are planning to start with Module 1, and I think that doing World History and Geography are very important (and in some ways more relevant for us because we are overseas missionaries) – so that will be our main focus for those topics.  I don’t really want to cover a full American history course to the exclusion of the rest of the world (we will of course cover it in depth when we reach Modules 5 and 6).  However – also because we are living outside of the US most of the time – I want to make sure that our children are somewhat exposed to our American heritage as well, since this won’t just happen naturally.  We are sort of doing that this year since we are in the US and taking advantage of using the travelling and sightseeing we are doing during our furlough to introduce some of those topics, and picking read-alouds on famous Americans and also reading through the Little House books for literature.  But this is just a very gentle K year that we are doing right now, my only goal being exposure.  But, my concern with tacking on some US history readings and resources along with Module 1 is that it may end up being too much and too overwhelming for such a young child who is just having her first year of formal school with narrations expected.  I have a tendency to come up with lots of great ideas and then not be able to implement them all.   So I’m looking for ideas from others of you who have done this – kept the main focus on World History, but adding in some little bits of American History in a gentle way to keep it from being too overwhelming…particularly with a younger child.

Thanks,
Jen