When you're a kid, you get a lot of unwanted advice. Usually it has to do with what you should do, what you should wear, and how you should eat. "Don't play with your food." "Don't talk with your mouth full." "Close your mouth when you chew." If you're not saying these things as a parent, you're hearing them again and again as part of your training in How to Be a Human Being.

Composer Cary Ratcliff heard all this stuff growing up in California. But to inject some humor into the process, his mom taught him an old poem by Gelett Burgess about mysterious beings with not-so-charming table manners. It's called "The Goops."

The Goops they lick their fingers
And the Goops they lick their knives:
They spill their froth on the tablecloth
Oh, they lead disgusting lives!
The Goops they talk while eating,
And loud and fast they chew;
And that is why I'm glad that I
Am not a Goop, are you?

Ratcliff says he and his sisters laughed a lot at the Goops, and when he was commissioned by the Hochstein School to write a set of songs for children's chorus, he decided to immortalize their icky, disgusting lives.

"Kids get a lot of message songs," Ratcliff says. "And the messages are telling them what we want them to learn." The composer didn't want to send a message: he wanted kids to have fun. So he combed through all his children's books for playful poems that echo the language that kids actually use when they play. He found several, wrote one verse himself, and set them to music in a suite of five songs that'll be premiered this week during a holiday concert by the Hochstein Youth Singers.

Cary Ratcliff's "Goops and Hula Hoops" is a 20-minute work that includes five movements. Four are based children's games, but the fifth is different. "'Who are you?' Asked the Wind' is serious and magical," Ratcliff says. "It's based on a poem by Karla Kuskin, and it anchors the others."

Youth Singers Director Maryellen Giese, who's conducting the premiere, says Ratcliff's songs are dotted with whimsical, onomatopoetic touches such as the French horn player blowing through her instrument to mimic the gusty wind. In the song "Hula Hoops," Giese says, the music never stops.

"It keeps you on your toes," she says.

"I get such a sense of delight when language is fun to sing," Ratcilff says. "It doesn't matter if the piece makes sense or not."

"Goops and Hula Hoops" premieres Saturday, December 8, 3 p.m. in the Hochstein Performance Hall, 50 North Plymouth Avenue. Performers include pianist Yasuko Kelly, the Hochstein Youth Singers, flutist Kathryn Scarbrough, clarinetist Marcy Bacon, bassoonist Kirsta Rodean, horn player Colleen Wolf, and Eastman oboe student Katherine Denny. Brian Bonnell will play the stringed bass. The Hochstein Concertino Strings, led by Elizabeth Fino-Radin, will also perform. 454-4596. hochstein.org. Free, open to the public.

Brenda Tremblay blogs about classical music at http://interactive.wxxi.org/blog/6.