I have been asked to teach a 5 year old girl, and i'm unsure how to go about doing this. I have always taught children over the age of 11, so a 5 year old is quite a big difference. Thankfully she is not a hyperactive 5 year old, she is quite shy and quiet, but then i am worried that this could pose a problem too. (i know when i was that age that i was shy and often scared to do things in front of grown ups)

Do any of you have any good teaching tips for young children? Any fun games etc?
And what book should i use? I am conscious that it has to be really simple as reading would be a problem.

Thanks

What instrument?

Not all 5 year olds are ready for one-to-one, although those that are can be rewarding to teach.

You're right - there is a big difference between 5 and 11. A five year old needs lots of short activities and changes of pace. Mix sitting-still with moving-around. Lots of aural games and movement to rhythm.

I personally will only start young beginners after a preliminary meeting, followed by a kind of taster course of around 4 weeks - usually the family and I are in agreement after that time as to whether we continue or leave it for a few terms. If we are teaching the same instrument ? I can give you a couple of pointers on books.

Oh yeah, sorry. It's the piano.

ok
I'd recommend some of the games in Piano Party (one of the Bastien range of books): even if you have a very bright 5 year old who can do all the activities in the first book at first attempt, it's still useful to you (and fun for the child) to check through the sort of things that are covered. Songs and short rote-learnt tunes are good at this age.

I wouldn't start straight away on a stave-based reading-music kind of book. A number of methods now introduce "off-stave" beginnings. Piano Adventures is one (there are others): have a look on line at pianoteaching.com for an online version of the first book in this series + sample lessons. Others will have their favourites too - if possible go and have a browse in a music shop.

Good luck - hope it goes well.

Thanks! Those books look great. I'm still a bit worried about teaching someone so young though, i'm so aware that this will be their first experience of the piano and my lessons will determine whether they stick with it...and because i haven't taught someone so young, i'm worried i'll not be able to teach them properly!

I take quite a few 5-year-olds in schools & they've always been fine with the Music Tree "Time to Begin" book, in some cases taken extremely slowly, but others can move reasonably fast. I don't find there's much advantage in beginning at 5 for most children, however - those who start a year later soon catch up.

I have taught a couple of 5/6 year olds and used Chesters easiest piano series. They love them and it seems to teach them well at a steady pace.

Hello, these questions get asked all the time, here is a selection of things I have suggested in the past when teaching young children:

For an excellent tutor book investigate www.dogsandbirds.co.uk which is an excellent set of books, teacher's notes, staves with great ideas for creative teaching. The set got an excellent review in this month's Music Teacher. Core to the concept is always singing as you play to develop the inner ear and using animal names to name the notes, e.g. d is dog etc. This really works and helps the children remember the notes easily.

I use this book / concept with all my young beginners and it is absolutely wonderful. The children are able to remember where the notes are almost instantly, none of the usual problems of not being able to remember where D is for example. Also the problem I used to have of children playing by finger numbers disappears since they are totally focused on which animal note they are playing. The children love the animals, I have both puppets and the wooden animals. You can use the animals not only to put on the notes on the keyboard, but also on the floor stave. There's a very useful game that covers so many areas of development - e.g. after a few weeks, using just D & B you play D and tell them it's D, they put it in the correct place on the stave - you may be surprised that they don't always know this (first benefit - practise with notation), you then play the next note - either another D or a B, they sing it and then decide which it is and put that in the right place (excellent aural training). And it's fun, I have discovered it's many children's favourite part of the lesson. As they progress through the book you start adding the other animals (in the order they appear in the book) and the children get really familiar with where all the notes go and how they sound.

The singing as they play - which could be done with any tutor book but people don't because they don't know about the benefit of singing - teaches the children to sing in tune, and of course develops the inner ear wonderfully. You may find that your students begin to be able to sight sing the tunes - which of course will help sight reading later since they will have an idea how the piece will sound before they play it.

You can also encourage the children to make up words to the pieces - they enjoy this.

1. Use the piano to make a thunderstorm or anything else like that
2. Get the child to draw a picture at home and compose some music to go with it (both these can be completely free, playing multiple notes at a time with hand / fist / using pedals etc)
3. Teaching a simple song and then learning to play it by ear, always singing as you play. Then transposing. look at Fun Games & Rhymes from NYCOS - the early years one and Middle Years are both good.
4. You play a simple accompaniment on the black notes and they improvise also on black notes.
5. Compose using notes the child knows
6. You play a note, child listens with eyes shut and has to find it. Good for if they have trouble knowing where notes are, you can restrict to only one or two notes. Extend by playing a simple pattern for them to find, tell them the starting note.
7. For pulse / teaching of concepts such as high and low you improvise using crotchets and they walk (can they keep a steady beat?) you need to match their walkign speed though (NOT them matching your playing speed). When you play high they walk, when low they clap. This can be extended to recognising other notes - quavers - twins who run about the place, minims - mum who has been shopping and does a step then a dip, grandpa who stretches (beat 1) and yawns for the next three beats.
8. For the young ones (5-7) investigate www.dogsandbirds.co.uk which is an excellent set of tutor books, teacher's notes, staves with great ideas for creative teaching. The set got an excellent review in this month's Music Teacher. Core to the concept is always singing as you play to develop the inner ear and using animal names to name the notes, e.g. d is dog etc. This really works and helps the children remember the notes easily.

This would be my most favourite series to use - with the odd digression onto Schaum and other beginners' books for a bit of variety. I'm not a big fan of playing endless games, I'm afraid - maybe that's just not my forte. I prefer to just be as enthusiastic as possible in lessons with traditional means, and if I ever (rarely) feel the child is starting to flag, then we have a laugh together about something, or backtrack a little to something that's easy. I've just started a lovely little six-year-old on the Chesters first book, and she's flying. I don't think children of 5 or 6 are too young for notation. If the concentration isn't there yet then I'd prefer to leave it till they're older, but I don't really think the understanding or application is beyond them. I like little pieces with words - if they don't like to sing along, then I do (good for a laugh... ); it encourages them to keep going. Sometimes I get them to sing the letter names of the notes (or I do it), sometime doh ray me (since listening to Cyrilla... ) and sometimes the finger numbers (don't shoot me).

Hurt my back last week and was confined to bed bored stiff! Wondered how to make notes on the piano easier to find. Result.......Great Aunt lives in a big house on the piano (3 black keys), outside she has 5 pets. In order of size they are her Bird, her Cat, her Dog (who lives in the kennel), her donkey called Eric (I was struggling here) and her horse called FireFly. Hope I'm better soon or they"ll be carting me off to the funny farm!

I got so many students aged 3 to 5. (imagine it! haha)

1. Flash card really helps!
2. Stickers. Give them stickers if they could answer your question correctly or could play entire pieces without mistake.
3. Excitement. Teaching children is more tired. Trust me! But it's fun. You have to be an energetic teacher. It's impossible to talk plainly to the children. You have to use varied tones when you talked to them. When they finished playing a piece, you could shout: "OH....Yes!!! You did it!!! Let's Hi Five!!" Something like that.
4. Update with their parents what you had taught their children today. Children in the young ages had not understood practicing by themselves, so you need parents to help them.
5. Repeat every thing you had taught them last week. For example, you taught them the crotchet, minim, and so on, repeat it again and again in every meeting. Children had a short term memory. They had to be reminded again and again so they remember.

Hope it helps..

That really helps enormously. Even if you ask the parent to come in for 5 minutes at the end it can work wonders with regard to what progress will be made in the coming week..

I've taught a small boy since he was 4. He came primarily because he has long ligaments and therefore floppy wrists and fingers and his mother and the medics thought playing piano would be good because it would help with control. I took him on with the understanding that I have never taught boys before at this age and I really didn't know how it would go.

Mother is an able pianist and big sister is another of my pupils so there's lots of support at home, and I would not do it without the support from home. I used the Chester's series which has good big notation and another book to supplement (might be keyclub - not sure). When he first started I subdivided the lesson (15 minutes) into piano work, marching round the room in time/high and low games, and singing (he's got excellent pitch and could teach big sister and mother a thing or two).

It's been quite a long haul to get past the basics, but I think that is how it goes with this age group, in many cases. I also have a little toy mouse which I use to encourage good hand position - very useful given his floppy wrists.