Timetoast Treasures

Timetoast is a fun on-line tool we used recently to encourage 6th graders to write. If you want the lesson plan, email me, but the long and short of it is that students end up with on-line timelines of events in their lives. The timelines are interactive; whenever you hover your mouse over one of the black dots, the corresponding event pops up in a little window that can include more text and a photo. The kids had fun creating their timelines and commenting on each other's work. Last night, I looked at several of the kids' offerings and could not help but smile.

Student were asked to put at least ten events on their timelines. (Plus-signs indicate events that have more details when you click on them.) Photos were required for at least three of their events. Most included pretty typical milestones....

Some are extra cute.Some were particularly sad...Some cracked me up...They also had to write complete paragraphs for three of those events. Obviously, some further editing is needed on this one...
Wait a minute! He almost died? Wow! Here are the particulars (I also blew it up so you could see it better, but I liked the toaster "touch")...

(Oh, the drama!)

Some kids are the kind who love to write.

Guess what kind this kid is....

What he lacks in detail, he makes up in sense of humor :)