What the heck, Coronavirus?!

UPDATE: Tuesday, March 24, 2020: I will be contacting each of you by email and/or telephone over the course of the next couple days.  I've got lot's of good phone numbers in my database, but don't have a complete list of email addresses for everyone.  FUSD has indicated that email should be our preferred conduit for student-teacher communication during this time, however you may feel free to leave a message for me any time at my Google Voice number: 928-788-0881.  If you would like to provide me with your family's favorite email address, simply send me a short message and I will add it to my recipients list.  If your family does not have reliable access to email or the Internet, important updates will also be preserved here on this blog: www.coesclass.com.

Likewise, beginning tomorrow, Wednesday, March 25, and for the duration of the school closure in Flagstaff, I will be maintaining consistent "office" hours online Monday through Friday each week from 9:00-11:00 in the morning.  Parents and students may communicate with me via email as needed during that time.

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Thursday, March 19, 2020

Hello everyone,

Thanks for checking in at coesclass.com to see what's going on... wish I could tell you I know how everything's going to turn out, and when we'll be able to get together as a class to finish the school year... but I can't.  Sorry about that.  I know Spring Break's technically not even over yet, but I sure do miss all of you a lot already!  The next few weeks are going to be hard.

I'm sure you're already aware that the FUSD School Board has announced that all classes in the district have been canceled through Friday, April 3 Friday, April 10, which means the soonest we might be able to see one another again is on Monday, April 6 Monday, April 13. That seems like a long way off from now.  And I think there's good reason to wonder if that date might be extended yet again before we get too far into April.  Gosh, these are strange times.

It looks like the school district is going to be doing some stuff related to online learning on or before March 30 for those students/families who have access to the Internet on a consistent basis in their homes.  Obviously, not everyone does, so the activities that will be put online soon won't be graded or used to assess mastery like a lot of our work often is.  But they'll be available to those who wish to "keep their pencils sharp" for the duration of the COVID-19 school closure, no matter how long it lasts.

Meanwhile, I'll keep posting here now and again with updates and other stuff that I think you might find interesting and worth spending a little of your "free" time on... For now, here are some sites and documents you'll probably recognize which you can use to stay up-to-speed on current events, biographies, the books we're reading in ELA, and social studies:

Current Events Fact Sheet
Biographical Report Template
Short Report Template

Arizona Daily Sun
USA Today
Google News
Biography.com
History.com

Liberty Kids
Khan Academy U.S. History

George's Secret Key to the Universe [.pdf]
The Magician's Nephew