Celebrating Our Cultures Through Journaling

Learning about our students’ cultures is vital to understanding our school community and celebrating our diversity. In secondary EAL this week, I learned that Suomi means Finland in Finnish. I asked my new sixth grade student what Suomi means when he entered my classroom wearing the hat pictured. He was not able to tell me, but we Googled it and I learned that it means Finland. I found this BBC Travel article (LINK) about the “mysterious origins” of the name. During a dialogue journal writing activity, one of our English language learners wrote about the kinds of food he likes, while also sharing examples of Finnish cuisine.