Piggyback songs - baby specific customization

Let's keep talking about piggyback songs. Once again these are songs that take a familiar tune and change a few or all of the words. They can be customized for themes, your location, or your family.

It's a great early literacy trick because it helps kids hear the rhymes/phonemes in words even more clearly when contrasted with what they are familiar with. Also parents/caregivers can catch on to the new song much easier than tackling new words and a new tune at the same time.

Last time we talked about Alaskan piggyback songs, this time let's talk about baby storytime piggy backs.

There isn't a storytime that goes by without me doing a piggyback song, but they are my favorite for baby storytime. Here we call baby storytime, Mother Goose time, and I took it over when I came back as youth services coordinator in December. I structure it as 90% songs with one flannel/puppet activity and one story  followed by open playtime. but that's another post.

This piggyback to Frere Jacques is one of our Mother Goose staples. We sing it every week.

I Love Baby
(tune: Frere Jacques)
I love baby, I love baby
Yes I do, Yes I do
And my baby love me
Yes, my baby loves me
Very much, Very much

This is a great framework to modify for any situation. You can insert any caregiver (I love mommy, I love daddy, etc.) I've got a version I sing to my new blender when I'm making smoothies at home.

For Mother Goose time, after we sing it once through with "baby" I ask the caregivers to sing their baby's names. (I just sort of hum a noise or sing my child's name.) The first time I did it, about half the caregivers turned the baby around from facing me and sang directly to their child. Perfect response! While I don't know that anyone is doing that at home, I can hope! And I'm showing parents on the spot how to modify a song quickly.

And just for giggles, here's the other version I sing a lot, but mostly to myself at the reference desk the hour before lunchtime:

A song to sing when doing the 12-1 shift on the reference desk:
I am hungry, I'm so hungry
When is lunch? Is it lunch?
Cause I've got yummy thai food
Leftovers from last night's thai food
Yummy noodles, Nom nom noodles

Start practising creating piggy back songs on the fly (perfect shower singing) and you'll be making lots of them in no time. And hopefully if you get caught singing something like this, no one commits you. They've not stuck me in the insane asylum.

A song to sing while making a green smoothie:
Let's start blending, brand new blender
Juice that fruit, grind that flax!
I'm so glad I got the nutribullet
Even if my husband laughs at me
Add more juice
And more spinach

Alaskan Piggyback Songs

I absolutely adore piggyback songs. For those of you who don't know, piggyback songs are songs that "piggyback" on an existing well known children's tune with slightly (or greatly) modified lyrics. They're great in storytimes because caregivers and children already are familiar with the tune and rhyme/rhythm structure and so pick up the changes easily.

Eventually I will write up a post about how I use piggyback songs. Some I sing alone and some I sing as a "second verse" to their well known cousin.

I am starting a series on piggyback songs because I use them constantly. This week (Monday) was Seward's Day where we celebrate the purchase of Alaska from the Russians. Apparently the Russians are petitioning to get Alaska back. However since that seems an extremely unlikely outcome, for now we will celebrate as I share some of my favorite Alaskan piggyback songs. It helps that I live in Alaska, but perhaps you too want to do an Alaskan storytime for the Iditarod? Or just because Alaska is ridiculously cool? A few of these will work for general Northern or animal storytimes.

Maybe someday I'll get all fancy like the good folks at jbrary and make videos of myself singing these songs.

Twinkle Twinkle Northern Lights
(tune: Twinkle Twinkle Little Star)
Twinkle twinkle northern lights
Sparkle in the Arctic night
Up above the world so high
Blue-green ribbon in the sky
Twinkle twinkle northern lights
Shimmer in my dreams tonight

(Motions: sparkly/wiggly fingers for twinkling lights, draw a ribbon in the sky, tuck your heads under your hands in the "sleep" position on dreams, or just improvise)

BALTO!
(tune: BINGO)
There was a musher had a dog and Balto was his name-o
B A L T O
B A L T O
B A L T O
And Balto was his name-o

(Continue as you would for Bingo with clapping and replacing letters with clapping. This is a great one to use during Iditarod time and to use with felt letters. You can pull off the letters one by one or cover them up with felt stars as each letter becomes a clap.)

Itsy Bitsy Grizzly Bear
(tune: Itsy Bitsy Spider)
The itsy bitsy grizzly bear climbed up the honey tree
Down came the angry bees and stung him on the knee
Out came the mama bear and kissed away the pain
And the itsy bitsy grizzly bear climbed up the tree again

(Motions: make grizzly bear claws climb up; pointer fingers are bees that circle and poke your knee, mama bear comes out in big arm motions and kisses, and grizzly bear claws climb up again.)

Moosie-Moo
(tune: Here we go Loopy Loo or Here we go Looby Loo, depending where you grew up)
Here we go Moosie-moo
Here we go Moosie might
Here we go Moosie-moo
All on an arctic night

Here we go Moosie-left
Here we go Moosie-right
Here we go Moosie-left
All on an arctic night

Here we go Moosie-up
Here we go Moosie-down
Here we go Moosie-up
Now the moose goes all around

Here we go Moosie-front
Here we go Moosie-back
Here we go Moosie-front
Here we go Moose ATTACK!

(Add verses as you need. Motions: make moose antlers with your hands on head and dance around with the lyrics. Charge and giggle on the last line.)

Moose Pokey
(tune: Hokey Pokey)
You put your antlers in,
You put your antlers out,
You put your antlers in and you shake them all about
You do the Moose Pokey and you turn yourself about
That's what it's all about!

You put your right hoof in...
You put your left hoof in...
You put the whole moose in...

(Seriously you can figure out the motions to this one on your own. I have faith in you. Also can be Moosey Pokey if you need to keep the beat structure closer to the original)

I've got more, but they are mostly animals I'll save them for a future Alaskan/northern animals storytime post.

Happy singing!