Joel And Pierson Students Celebrate In Rhyme!

On March 16, nineteen students from the Joel Elementary and Abraham Pierson Schools in Clinton traveled to Washington, Connecticut to participate in the 20th Annual Connecticut C.O.L.T. (Council of Language Teachers) Rhyme Celebration. 

The students from Joel, under the direction of Señora Moran and Señora Godburn, performed “En la Pulga de San José.”

The Pierson students, prepared by Señora Recine, performed the popular Cuban song, “Guantanamera.” 

Additionally, Clinton was proud to have Alex Kadlof, (Joel School), reciting a poem in his native Polish, and Mishrit Rai (Joel) and Yashveen Rai (Pierson) performing a dance and song in their native Punjabi.

The celebration included over 200 students from 23 Connecticut cities and towns.  Seventeen languages were represented:  Bosnian, Croatian, Farsi, French, German, Hebrew, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Laotian, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Spanish, Tagalog, Urdu and Yoruba. 

The rhymes, songs and tongue-twisters performed reflected this year’s theme of “Let’s Celebrate!”  

The COLT Rhyme Celebration encourages children to perform onstage in various languages not only to develop communicative skills, but also to gain understanding of language diversity.