Drive Thru History Adventures {A Review}

With Drive Thru History Adventures you join charismatic host Dave Stotts as he journeys on location to some of history’s most famous places in some pretty interesting vehicles.  Dave is an engaging host with a wit for humor that keeps kids (and adults) engaged.  My fifteen year old says, “He has the worst Dad humor.  But it’s so bad you just have to laugh.”  Our family happens to appreciate Dad humor.

There are three courses that are offered with the one year membership: US History, Ancient History, and Bible History.  Each course has a 30-45 minute video to watch, with corresponding readings, pictures, summaries, the occasional “side road” and discussion questions.  There is also a “Dig Deeper” section where updates and additional articles are located.    

Your membership gives you access to Adventures TV, as well, which allows you to watch the episodes on your Android or iPhone device.  At the moment, they do not have a Roku channel, but we were able to Chromecast the episodes to our TV using the app on our phones.  This made it much more enjoyable when we were watching episodes as a family.

There is also an exclusive members Facebook page that you can request to join with your membership.  It is a fairly active page, with Dave Stotts posting daily.  Sometimes he posts new short videos or a little behind the scenes information.  Sometimes he just posts for fun.  They are also quick to respond to member posts.  My kids have enjoyed watching the short videos that he posts about the history of certain holidays.  The history of Valentine’s Day has been their favorite so far.  They repeated quotes from it for a few days afterward.

The Courses

Ancient History

I had my seventh grader, Allie, take the Ancient History course offered.  Told from a Providential point of view, the journey begins in the ancient world of Rome and meanders through Ancient Greece, what is now present day Turkey, and Asia Minor.  You follow along through the travels of the Apostle’s Paul and John and see the effects Christianity had in shaping our world today, as well as learning about Alexander the Great, the Gladiators, the Olympics and other interesting events.  There are many stops at beautiful artifacts and locations throughout, such as the Roman Pantheon and the Fairy Chimneys of Cappadocia. Interwoven in the lessons are famous paintings, statues, and beautiful stained glass.

Aside from the obligatory eye roll on occasion when I remind her to watch her history video, she really has been enjoying this course.  She even went a little fan girl on me when we received some surprise swag in the mail with an autographed photo of Dave.

She was familiar with some of the ancient Roman history from her Latin, and of course, she is familiar with the stories from the Bible, but seeing the places and learning more in depth about the why’s and the how come’s has really helped to deepen her understanding and pique her interest.

On occasion, I would even find one of her siblings watching the video with her, just as focused.

She was able to do the discussion questions easily, but the assigned readings were much harder and we had to read them together and then I would explain them.  Some of the readings include excerpts from Julius Caesar to the Hittite Peace Treaty and the Edict of Milan.  If you have a high school student, they shouldn’t have a problem, junior high may need some help.  Personally, I probably wouldn’t use the readings at all for any grades below 7th, unless it was me summarizing what they were about.

If you were using this as a high school course, I personally don’t feel there is enough for a full credit, especially given that there are only twelve adventures, which is about 12 hours of videos and just under that in readings and discussion questions.  I think if you added in some papers or other research you could make it a half or full credit.  It would also serve as a great supplement for an existing ancient history curriculum.

Bible History

American History

Overall

Membership Options