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’!

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!

 1 : The Easiest Way To Learn The Notes

 2 : Fingers!

 3 : Introducing The Note Family

 4 : Finger Strengthening

 5 : The Dice Game – a fun way to encourage practice

Check out my First Piano Lessons eBook for many more exercises and 17 pages of supporting printables for introducing kids to piano.