This is a critical part for me in the game too. I do not leave the game until I have seen the first two events.

This is how I play the beginning:

1. Get the herb mastery with the adults and the oldest child
2. Get my fire started after my herb mastery
3. Set the adults as researchers and the oldest child as the farmer, the other children are set on research and healing
4. When the next oldest child makes 14 they go to the research table
5. When the algae blooms I have that villager go to the table
6. I should have reached at least 1500 by then ( hard,2x) I know that if I need to I can buy the next level in food
7. I try to get to 6500 this is enough for food and engineering
8. When I reach 6500 I buy my food and the level 1 in engineering
9. I put two villagers on food and everybody else on building the dam
10. By the time the coconuts run out the dam should be finished or just about
11. There may not be food at this time but the time for the crop to come is not that long for them to starve to death.
12. I put everyone except the oldest villagers at the table and the oldest builds the hut, this way they can master the hard skill while they are still young. The other hard skill is farming. I try to get them to master these two first.

The village that I am currently playing is on track now to the 90k level of food. We had to use 10k for exploration and now we are on our way. Most of the villagers have mastered at least 2 skills at this point and I have only been playing 24+ hours.

With this method I find that it is easy to get them to 90k without anyone dying of starvation.

Maybe someone else has a better way.