Dance to Your Daddie Lyrics
Waiting for the fishing boat to come home, a parent dances a baby up and down and promises a little fish for supper. It is one of the warmest bouncing rhymes in Mother Goose.
Dance to Your Daddie
Dance to your daddie,
My bonnie laddie;
Dance to your daddie, my bonnie lamb;
You shall get a fishy,
On a little dishy;
You shall get a fishy, when the boat comes home.
Printed from https://nurseryrhymes.co/dance-to-your-daddie/
- Type
- Action Songs, Mother Goose
- Tune
- Traditional
- Best for ages
- 0 to 3 years
Hand Motions and Actions
| When you sing | Do this |
|---|---|
| Dance to your daddie, my bonnie laddie | Hold your baby under the arms and let them bounce their feet on your lap. |
| You shall get a fishy, on a little dishy | Hold your hands flat together like a dish. |
| When the boat comes home | Rock side to side like a boat on the waves. |
What Does Dance to Your Daddie Mean?
A parent is dancing a little boy while everyone waits for the fishing boat to come back. Bonnie means pretty or lovely and laddie means little boy, so "my bonnie laddie" just means "my lovely boy". When the boat is home, there will be fish for everyone, even a small one on a little dish for the baby.
You can change laddie to lassie (little girl) and it works just as well.
History and Origin
The words are Scottish and northern English, and the rhyme is closely related to the North East English folk song When the Boat Comes In, which was printed in the early 1800s and sung in the fishing towns of North East England. That song later became the theme tune of a 1970s BBC television drama of the same name. Halliwell's 1840s collection has a version with "my little babby" in place of "bonnie laddie".
Learning Activities
- Knee dance: bounce your baby gently on your lap in time with the words, with a bigger bounce on "home".
- Boat rocking: older toddlers can sit facing you, hold hands and rock back and forth like a boat.
- Fish supper: at mealtime, serve something on a small dish and say the "fishy on a little dishy" line.