Beginners Piano Lessons - Learning The Piano Keyboard

Piano Finger Pets are the perfect way to help little ones learn the piano keyboard notes and finger numbers in Beginners Piano Lessons!

This is a really handy teaching aid for young pianists, and such a fun way to consolidate beginner lessons to make sure ‘the penny really drops’!

They become so engaged with the ‘finger pet’ idea that they want to play it over and over, and as a consequence, happily the notes and numbers just sink in!

How To Make The Piano Finger Pets

First print the Piano Finger Pets sheet below and cut out each animal with the note name and number. I used photographic paper to make them shiny and a bit more sturdy.
Don’t worry that the letters look back -to- front on the sheet, this is so that they are the correct way round when they are on the reverse.
Fold them over in half so the animal character is on one side and the letter and number is on the other.
Take 5, 12inch/30cm pipe cleaners and cut them in half.
Twist each piece into a little circle, big enough to slide on to the child’s finger and then twist the ends together at the front to make a 2 cm post on which to stick the animal cut outs .
Now glue the inside of the folded animal cut-outs and sandwich the twisted ends of the pipe cleaner rings, squeezing them gently together to make sure that they are secure.

Print Finger Pets Here

I use these craft pipe cleaners and this photographic paper

How To Introduce Piano Finger Pets into Beginners Piano Lessons

If time allows you can involve the child with the cutting and glueing.
The top row corresponds to the Right Hand 1,2,3,4,5 and the row beneath corresponds to the Left hand 1,2,3,4,5
Once ready place the complete set on the correct fingers of each hand starting with the thumbs as 1.
Now ask the child to practice on the table, tapping each finger in turn and saying the animal names as they press each finger down. Cat, Dog, etc
Do this with both hands.
Repeat this process with the note letter names with both hands.
Repeat this process with the finger numbers for both hands.
Now play some guessing games; twist the picture around and then see if they can remember the order of animals? notes? and numbers?
Each time repeat the process for both hands.
Finally remove the piano finger pets and test their memories!
See if they can remember the animals, notes and numbers without any visual prompts at all.
They do love to show you how clever they are!