Drive Thru History® – Take a Look at the World of the First Christians – A Review of "Acts to Revelation"

Reviewing the latest DVD collection from Drive Thru History® was a wonderful opportunity for our family. Drive Thru History® "Acts to Revelation" looks at what happened after the Gospel accounts of Jesus Christ. Our host, Dave Stotts, takes viewers on an adventure through the modern Mediterranean world so we can travel back in time to see what the lives of Peter, James, Paul, Barnabas, and others were like during the early history of the Christian Church. Everyone in our family was eager to get started with Dave again as he drove "Steve McQueen" through Israel and then continued his adventures in Turkey, Cyprus, Greece, Malta, and Rome in other vehicles.

The special edition is a beautiful 3-DVD set with a Study Guide attached to the DVD case that provides beautiful photographs, summaries, discussion questions, suggested readings, and additional historical information. The case is well made and looks very nice sitting on our shelf as we watch each new episode. My only complaint would be that I would prefer if the Study Guide was removable but I can also see the potential for it getting lost if one could remove it.

Drive Thru History® offers "fast-paced, content-rich history" through over 50 episodes and this latest series is no different than the others in the series that we got to watch when reviewing Drive Thru History® Adventures last year.

Watch the Trailer!

How Our Family is Enjoying Drive Thru History® "Acts to Revelation"

Almost every night after dinner, our family has been joining together in the living room to watch Drive Thru History® "Acts to Revelation" much like we did when we reviewed Drive Thru History® Adventures. By watching Dave Stotts present the lives of the individuals in the New Testament as he traveled through the Mediterranean Sea area, we are able to pause and discuss what he was talking about in each episode. There are many opportunities to make connections to modern day events, such as those in and around Syria.

When our two younger children are older, we will use Drive Thru History® "Acts to Revelation" as part of our homeschool curriculum as we read and discuss the questions and the recommended readings from the Bible. For now, they are enjoying watching the programs with us as a family.

The Study Guide 

The Study Guide of Drive Thru History® "Acts to Revelation" provides viewers with an introduction to the 18-episode series. In the last series of Drive Thru History®, viewers joined Dave Stotts in modern Israel as he documented the birth, ministry, life, and resurrection of Jesus according to the Gospels. With this new series, each episode is covered in the Study Guide with an introductory quote, summary of the episode, discussion questions, reading, and a side road.

Example of Study Guide for Episode 13

"When neither sun nor stars appeared for many days and the storm continued raging, we finally gave up all hope of being saved." Luke, Acts 27:20

The summary shares a map of Malta as well as a brief explanation of the "perilous journey at sea." The Side Road provides some background information about Publius, the chief official of Malta. Discussion questions include:

• Name at least two other people that were on the ship to Rome with Paul. 
• After the shipwreck on Malta, why did the locals think that Paul was a god? 

At the end of each episode there are suggested readings for the viewers.

What We Like About Drive Thru History® "Acts to Revelation"

A short list of the aspects of "Acts to Revelation" that our family enjoys:

• Humor of Dave Stotts
• Use of maps
• Examination of historical sites 
• Cool cars 
• Perfect length of episodes (approximately 27 minutes) 
• Use of paintings to illustrate Biblical events 

We love the use of technology in the episodes.

Throughout the series a number of paintings are used to help bring the stories to life.

Our three-year-old has enjoyed looking through the photographs and images in the Study Guide with me as we watch the episodes while I like being able to use the discussion questions to check for comprehension and retention. Having the answers in the back of the Study Guide is also helpful in case you need your child to watch the episode and answer the questions before you are able to sit down and enjoy Drive Thru History® "Acts to Revelation" yourself.

One of our five-year-old's favorite parts are the maps. Both my husband and I agree that it is very useful to actually see on a map where the early leaders of the Church traveled. In addition to the maps, our five-year-old son also loves the theme song. At the end of each episode, he gets up and dances through the credits.

Two specific scenes that really stuck with our two younger children were that of Dave in the sheep's clothing and the image of Dave getting dressed into the armor that the Spartans would have worn at the Battle of Thermopylae.

The history major in me LOVES how Dave incorporates different historical facts to provide evidence of the historical accuracy of the Bible. I also like the fact that the variety of religions is not shied away from but included. I feel discussing the different temples in such places as Corinth really helps viewers understand the challenges that Paul and other early leaders faced as they traveled the early Mediterranean World.

Another feature of Drive Thru History® "Acts to Revelation" that I like is the overlaying of the ancient buildings and cities on top of the modern day cities. I love being able to see the comparison and change that has taken place over time.

My husband enjoys seeing the maps which enable the viewer to follow the travels of the early Christians as we move through the books of the New Testament after the Gospels. They provide a good correlation to the book of Acts and the corresponding letters of the Bible.

Our family would recommend Drive Thru History® "Acts to Revelation" for families, couples, or individuals interested in learning more about the time after the resurrection of Jesus. Each episode is short but packed full of amazing information as Dave tours various historical sites as well as modern day cities. Personally, I think this is one DVD collection we will watch over and over.

The enthusiasm of Dave and his obvious love of history are great parts of this series.

If you would like to learn more information, please visit the following sites: 

Website – Facebook – YouTube – Instagram 

If you would like to see how other families have used Drive Thru History® "Acts to Revelation" in their households, please visit the reviews of The Old Schoolhouse Magazine Homeschool Review Crew.

D is for Dickens (Blogging Through the Alphabet)

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One author with whom I have a love-hate relationship is Charles Dickens. When I was younger, I enjoyed his Christmas-themed stories but during high school I found reading his other works difficult and demanding. It was not until I got to college that I began to reread some of the novels I had read in high school and really began to appreciate works like Great Expectations, Hard Times, and A Tale of Two Cities. Now I cannot imagine not enjoying a classic story by Dickens.

Why are the works of Charles Dickens popular? 

Why have people been attracted to Charles Dickens' novels since their publication? Because his characters are very appealing and because of the realistic settings of his stories. In addition to bringing to life the slums of Oliver Twist, the boring classroom of Hard Times, or the scary cemetery in which Scrooge is buried, Dickens also brought to life objects with his descriptions.

His works ranged from lighter and more humorous stories to ones in which he examined societal problems like workhouses, poverty, and greed. Depending upon which novel one reads you can get an overview of life during the Victorian Era from Dickens.

"So much has Dickens become a part of the popular imagination that his characters have taken on a real and lasting identity" 

(Hard Times ix).

Personal Life of Charles John Huff Dickens 

Dickens was born in Portsmouth, England on February 7, 1812 but his family moved to London when he was two. This city would be influential in his novels and stories. Another influence that would play a role in Dickens' works is that of his family's monetary difficulties. His father, John Dickens, spent some time in debtor's prison and at the age of 12 Charles Dickens worked in a factory for a few months to help support the family.

In addition to a brief stint in a factory, Dickens also worked as a newspaper reporter which would help his writing develop. He would use the skills acquired reporting on debates in Parliament to help him write very convincing character dialogues in his fictional works.

Charles and Catherine Hogarth married in 1836 and had 10 children but they separated in 1858. One of the reasons for the disenchantment of Dickens with his wife is said to be the number of children he had to support. He blamed this upon her. Even though Dickens wrote that they separated amicably, Catherine did not get to see her children beyond their oldest, Charley, who moved in with her.

Mr. and Mrs. Dickens did travel together to America in 1842 where Dickens met Edgar Allan Poe in Philadelphia. There are several letters between the two authors providing evidence of their meeting.

Reading Aloud

In addition to writing, Dickens was also interested in drama and the theater. He enjoyed attending the theater as well as producing and acting in amateur productions. One of his joys was reading A Christmas Carol aloud to his family and friends. At the first reading in 1853, the story took three hours to read but by the time he was done condensing it, A Christmas Carol would only take one hour to share aloud. According to Cedric Dickens, Charles Dickens' great-grandson, "He wrote rattling good stories to be read aloud, read to an audience of family and friends" (as quoted in Christmas with Dickens by Cedric Dickens). Do you read aloud any of the works by Charles Dickens?

Do you have a favorite Charles Dickens' novel or short story?

Interested in reading more about Edgar Allan Poe or perhaps looking for a good study guide for a work of C. S. Lewis? Be sure to check out my other posts.

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Art of the Ancients – a Review of ARTistic Pursuits Inc.

Looking for a fun and creative way to bring art into your homeschooling experience? ARTistic Pursuits Inc. is "the curriculum for creativity!" Choosing from several different volumes (K-3rd Grade Level, Volumes 1-8), families can easily bring art into their home even if they are not artistic or creative. Last year, our family reviewed the introductory volume, Art for Children, Building a Visual Vocabulary and this year we are using Art of the Ancients, K-3 Vol. 2 to learn about the ancient Mediterranean World and create art representative of the styles of Ancient Greece, Egypt, and other cultures of the time.

It is recommended that one starts with Art for Children, Building a Visual Vocabulary, K-3 Volume 1  and then you can either follow chronological order through volumes 2-8 or you can skip to any historical period that interests you or your children. These volumes from ARTistic Pursuits Inc. provide families with a four-year course from kindergarten to third grade with one art lesson a week planned for you with text and video lessons.

All the materials needed are laid out in the beginning of the book. I simply took the book with me to the arts and crafts store to purchase the items we required. While some of the suggested brands are not always found at your local store, we found what we needed on this trip so we could get started with the lessons.

What Do You Get?

One hard cover volume
2 discs (one blu-ray and one DVD)

Instructions for 18 projects
12 Text Lessons
6 Video Lessons

A list of materials needed from the art materials that we purchased (such as a soft pastel set, 5 lbs. of gray self-hardening clay, and a wire clay cutter) to household items like paper towels and hairspray.

Many of the text lessons also provide instructions for teaching the lesson outside of the home environment to a group of children.

How Much Time Does It Take?

"Each lesson is simple. It takes only ten minutes of your time, and yet your involvement is crucial to learning."


Reading through each lesson with your children and watching accompanying video lessons does not take a lot of time. The majority of the time will be while your children are creating their art. During this time, you can either observe, help, or join in like I have in the past.

Depending upon how much time and effort your child puts into each art project, the lessons can take from 15 minutes to an hour or more. Our five-year-old son usually spent about 30 minutes or so on each project from start to finish (not including the time we sat together and read the background history information). If your children are older, they might spend more time to perfect their art masterpieces.

How Did We Use Art of the Ancients in our Homeschool? 

Even though the lessons are geared for Kindergarten to Third Grade, our preschooler also joined in on the lessons as she likes to do everything her older brother does while homeschooling. The lessons themselves are not very difficult to adapt to complete with both our five-year-old and three-year-old. So, we focus upon the history-related information with our son and our daughter can join in with the drawing and sculpting.

The book is designed so you can do one lesson a week over the course of 18 weeks. We did not space it out in the same manner during our review period. There were some days where our children would happily do two lessons in one day – they were having so much fun!

As we had not used soft pastels in our home yet, we watched the first video lesson twice which instructed us on how to use them to draw pictures. This information would be invaluable for the next several lessons. Soft pastels were used in the lessons on European Cave Drawings, Minoan Fresco Painting, and Art in Pyramids (although we used regular crayons for this project) that we have completed so far.

Some of the kids' artwork using soft pastels 

Another art material we had not yet used in our home was the gray self-hardening clay. (The kids have played with play dough but not a more official art clay.) Our five-year-old son and my husband watched the video lesson together and then made their own hockey player as we love ice hockey (not football).

Art in Minoan Palaces lesson – our son chose a sheep to draw with the soft pastels.

What We Liked 

Just as with the review of the first volume, Art for Children, I really like that Art of the Ancients is a mix of video and text lessons. This provides a great way to meet the needs of a variety of learners. The video lessons are quite clear and both our five-year-old and three-year-old sat and watched the lessons together.

One of our son's favorite lessons was Clay: Slab Building. We watched the video and then with the help of Dad, he started creating his own figure – a hockey player. We had to make some adjustments as we did not have canvas or a rolling pin to use but everything still worked out okay. The only problem we had was that the arms and hockey stick did not adhere to the body figure. Perhaps they weren't scored properly as instructed in the video?

If we had used canvas as suggested in the video, our clay would not have stuck so badly.

Putting together the hockey player.

A finished project! 

The bright colors and images included with the text lessons make it easy to teach the lessons as if reading a story book. Our five-year-old son and I sat together on the couch and read through the history information before working on the art project. For example, before creating an Egyptian-inspired mural, we read the background information on art in pyramids and examined the mural Harvesting and Pressing Grapes using the questions provided in the book. Some of those questions include:

• How do men carry grapes from the vineyard? 
• Can you find jars used for storing the drink that was made from the grapes? 

After answering the questions, our son then made his own mural (inspired by a video game he has been playing lately).

Drawing one of the people on his wall mural.

Coloring in the first scene on the wall mural.

Working on the second scene on his wall mural.

The inclusion of objectives at the end of the book is a fantastic bonus for the homeschooling family. If you want to look for a particular art skill or history topic, you can review the 18 objectives and then pick the lesson to study. This would be beneficial in planning your homeschool schedule. 

I also like the inclusion of a bibliography and the fine art credits so if we wish to look for more information we have a starting point. 

How We Will Use Art of the Ancients in the Future 

As our two younger children get older and their art skills progress, we will be able to revisit the lessons in Art of the Ancients, K-3 Vol 2 as well as expand upon the history presented by doing additional research. Although I know the next project we will probably be doing is that of the Roman Portrait Paintings because our daughter has asked to draw pictures of ourselves. 

Our teen will be studying World History next homeschool year, so I will be able to incorporate some of the art projects into his lessons if he wishes to continue his pursuit of art. (He did join in the art projects last year when we reviewed Volume 1.) So even though the book is for grades K-3, we will be able to use the video lessons to review art techniques and then our teen son can create a clay relief as we study Mesopotamia or draw a portrait as we study Roman mummy portraits.

Art of the Ancients, K-3 Vol 2 is a wonderful hardcover book packed with 64 pages of great information and wonderful visuals! As each lesson includes a sample created image (either by Brenda Ellis or a student), children are sure to see that all art can be beautiful.

If you wish to learn more about ARTistic Pursuits Inc. and the other volumes in the series, you can visit the following sites including reviews by my fellow members of the Homeschool Review Crew.

Website – Facebook – Twitter

Book Club: Snowmen at Night

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Learning about the seasons can be a lot of fun and there are so many great books available to read aloud as a family like Snowmen at Night by Caralyn Buehner and Mark Buehner. In this children's story, our narrator explains why his snowman changes shape at night during an evening of fun.

Science

Explore the real reasons why snowmen change shape over time. Discuss melting and refreezing of snow and water.

Physical Education

There are so many great ideas to incorporate physical activities into your homeschool from Snowmen at Night.

• Races
• Skating
• Baseball 
• Snowball fight – you could even accomplish this inside without any snow by using soft materials like pom-poms
• Sledding 

Crafting and Activities

• Share your favorite winter-themed jokes 
• Learn how to knit a scarf
• Make a real or pretend hat 
• Make and drink hot cocoa (or let it get cold to see how the snowmen liked their ice-cold cocoa) 
• Build a snowman 
• Decorate a snowman based upon what they like to do at night using my free download! 

Snow and Music 

Children love music! And there are a variety of snow-related songs beyond those we sing around the Christmas holidays.

Looking for more snow-themed posts? 

We created snowflake sun-catchers and decorated a door and I have a collection of Winter-themed posts you can check out here.

I also linked up with Timberdoodle! 

C is for Confucius (Blogging Through the Alphabet)

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Like many individuals in history who have become influential, not much is known about Confucius. The teacher, writer, and statesman from the prosperous state of Lu (present day Shangdong province) lived sometime between c. 550 BC and 480 BC in Ancient China. The information that we do know about Confucius (also known as Kong Qui and K'ung Fu-tzu) was written down by his students and later generations. The main source of his teachings and sayings is The Analects. While he was a member of the professional administrative class, he only held minor positions and eventually settled into the position of a teacher in his home state of Lu.

At the Center 

The teachings of Confucius set forth models for interactions between family and the public as well as educational standards. At the center of his teachings was the subject of human relationships. He believed that society is a network of human relationships. 

There are five archetypal relationships which include:

1. Relationship between ruler and subject
2. Relationship between father and son
3. Relationship between husband and wife
4. Relationship between elder brother and younger brother
5. Relationship between friend and friend 

People should fulfill their role in their various relationships by doing the right thing. Individuals should treat others with respect, live virtuous lives based on traditional customs, and follow rituals (which varied from very simple to elaborate). 

Influence on the State 

Confucius taught about the proper role of leaders. Self-discipline was an important characteristic of leaders, which would help them fulfill the relationship between ruler and subject. Rulers should remain humble and be a positive role model for their subjects. If everyone in society fulfilled their roles, then society would function smoothly. 

The ideas of Confucius would eventually be known as Confucianism and they still hold an important part in many cultures today. 

More Blogging Through the Alphabet Posts 

Looking for more posts about China and its history? Why not read about the Boxer Rebellion or the Zhou Dynasty?

References and Resources 

Biography.com's Article on Confucius

Looking for more Blogging Through the Alphabet Posts? 

Inlinkz Link Party

• Amanda @ Hopkins Homeschool
• Kirsten @ DoodleMom Homeschool
• Jennifer @ A Peace of Mind
• Kimberley @ Vintage Blue Suitcase
• Christine @ Lifes's Special Necessities
• Yvonne @ The Life We Build
• Dawn @ Schoolin' Swag
• Wendy @ Life on Chickadee Lane
• Lori @ At Home: where life happens
• Kristen @ A Mom's Quest to Teach