If you are praying and feel you are being led to begin with American history, then really, don’t worry about the “rotations” There is nothing magical about them–they are a convenience tool. Your child will not be permanently warped if he did not go through two complete “rotations” One thing Charlotte said was that it is more useful to really spend time in a period or with a historical personage than it is to try to “cover” everything.
There are a lot of very good books for younger children on American history. I started my oldest children with American history, but because of where we are as a family, my youngest is in ancient history, ready to cover Greece and Rome this next year–and boy, am I having a hard time finding really excellent books! He’s not yet ready for Guerber’s histories of Greece and Rome, and most everything else is silly little generic “life and clothes and food in Ancient Rome” Not that those books don’t have a place, but I didn’t want them to be my core curriculum! LOL
You may not perfectly “cycle” through if you begin with American. But if that is where the Lord is leading you, then it’s OK! Your children will get what they need. Perhaps they don’t need two perfectly finished rotations. Perhaps when you revisit American history later, you’ll be led to spend less time, or focus on the development of the government, or something else. Or perhaps you will decide to “compress” some of the later years to make it work for you. The beauty of the flexible book lists for each age group here is that it really does not matter what year a child is in, say, Middle Ages–there are great books for younger kids, middle kids, older kids.
What does your husband think of the difficulty? I know when I talked to mine, all those years ago when we were getting started, that he really wanted us to begin on American history.
Just a few thoughts!
Michelle D