Yes, I agree with what triton17 said. I haven’t been through this myself, but I know that’s how I’m thinking about it with my young one. There are things, for instance, about pretty much every era of history that you really do need to treat in a very different way for a younger student than an older one. Like triton17 was saying…I might mention about Columbus and slavery in a very gentle way with my 7 year old, but when they get to high school I would think they are ready to hear some of the more disturbing, but necessary details about the persecution and in some cases genocide of the natives by the people who followed after Columbus came. But it’s not just how much of those sort of “darker” details you can talk about with a smaller child. There’s aspects of politics and government which I want my kids to learn, but that they wouldn’t be able to understand at a young age. And honestly it has to do with attention span too. There’s things I could tell him now (like, they aren’t too gritty or too confusing) but he just doesn’t have the attention span he will 5 years from now, so I have to trim down what we study to what his attention can handle. Later I can go deeper without loosing him (hopefully).
So the first time though is to give kids sort of an outline/overview, and to give them some hands on things about the culture to get them interested, the seond time through is to get into more detail.
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We used history pockets this year, adding books to read with it and my daughter loved it! She told me this week that she was mad that it wasn’t longer. I also used a random map skills wb for mapping. We are only in k though.
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@SandyALE - I’ve looked at history pockets a zillion times. I’ve considered using them to supplement our history units that I make. Do you find the history pockets are worth the money (not that they are very expensive, but I’m cheap and don’t like to buy things unless I’m 99.9% positive!) I’d love your input/opinion on them (clearly your daughter liked them! That’s a bonus!) 
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IMHO they made it easy to teach the subject and add supplements in reading/writing, but if you are used to making your own, it is nothing you couldnt do yourself 
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From what you say, I would think that Sonlight would work really well for your son. Sonlight uses several short history texts, most of which have pictures (look at samples of some of the Usborne books they use, or Greek News, etc.). The only spine that doesn’t have pictures is the Child’s History of the World (in Cores B and C, which would be about the right age for your son).
Furthermore, Sonlight uses historical fiction books to draw kids in and make them feel involved in the history that they’re studying. They also include missionary stories. In Cores B and C, the readers (books the child reads on their own) and some of the read-alouds (books that the parent reads to the child) are only occasionally related to the history, many are just generally high-quality books. But starting with Core D, which you might start with your son when he’s 9-ish, the readers and read-alouds tie into the history, and they include fictionalized biographies, historical fiction, etc. Your son would probably really enjoy all the characters bringing history alive.
There isn’t writing in the history program, although there is if you do the Language Arts program that’s included. You could choose a Language Arts program that is a little on the easy side to cut down on the writing, if you want. Or you can just set aside the LA program, do whatever you want for writing, and not worry about it.
The richness of the stories lend themselves to pretend play. My kids will pretend to be saving Jewish babies from the Nazis, or Christians hiding in the catacombs under Rome, or all sorts of things based on whatever we’ve been reading. It really gives them all sorts of fodder for the imagination.
Hope this helps!
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