Playing games in the piano studio is a great way to introduce and review concepts, change the pace of a lesson, and have fun around music!
I especially like working games into lessons with my younger beginner students: playing with animal erasers, getting off the bench and onto the floor, and sometimes introducing a wee bit of competition! (Watch this with your young ones, though - often a cooperative game will be a better choice for preschoolers.)
Some of the concepts beginners need help with are:
- Left and right
- Finger numbers
- Musical alphabet
- Names of the keys on the keyboard
Left and Right
First, establish how a student will tell their right hand from their left. Sometimes we refer to a student's hand as “the hand you write with” or “the hand you throw a ball with.” I like to have students put their hands in the air in front of them, facing out, and form an “L” in each hand using their thumbs and pointer fingers. Only the left hand will form a proper “L” for “left.”
Play a simple Simon Says game, where you call out directions and the student puts their left hand on their ear, or their right hand pats their shoulder, or their left hand touches their shoe, etc.
Finger Numbers
Do a simple “finger warm-up” where the student puts his hands in the air in front of him, and then you call out fingers to wiggle: “Wiggle your ones” (thumbs), “wiggle your twos,” and so forth.
Trace the student's hands on a piece of paper. Toss a pom pom, cotton ball, or penny on the paper, trying to land on a finger. Ask the student to name the hand (left/right) and the finger number that the object landed on. If you'd like, have the student label the finger number with a pencil. Continue playing until all fingers have been labelled.
Musical Alphabet
Students can practice their musical alphabet forwards and backwards with this simple train game! Additionally, they can practice finding “what comes next” and “what comes before” when given two consecutive letters of the alphabet.
Names of Keys on the Keyboard
Animal Rescue and Race is a set of two beginner piano games that teach keyboard geography and direction.
In Animal Race to the Top, students construct a paper keyboard on the floor and then choose letter cards to race animals from bottom (left) to the top (right) of the paper keyboard.
In Animal Rescue, animals are running loose in the zoo! Students must draw a letter card and put the animals back in their proper “cages” by finding the corresponding keys on the keyboard.
Of course, you can play both of these games right at the piano, too! But if your students are anything like mine, they will enjoy an opportunity to jump off the bench and play a game on the floor for a few minutes at the end of their lesson. (Maybe you will, too!)
Penguin Piano is an extension of this activity. I like to use it as a take-home assignment that follows our games of Animal Rescue and Race. Students can take home one worksheet to cut and paste, or they can take home two sheets and race a parent or a sibling to form a proper keyboard with labelled keys.
You can find these last 3 games in my shop, as well as other resources for teaching piano! All come with a studio license, so you can print as many copies as you need for your students.
What are some of your favorite games for beginning piano students? Let me know in the comments!
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