Have you discovered Iwako erasers in piano lessons yet? My piano students and I use them for practically everything in piano lessons, except erasing!
Iwako erasers are cute, little erasers that come in all sorts of fun shapes. They come in almost any shape imaginable. You can’t go wrong with a set of animal erasers. The food shapes are always popular too, but there are all kinds of other random themed shapes like outer space objects, vehicles and more.
You can find the best selection of Iwako erasers on Amazon. It’s common to find sets of 30 for around $10-$20. I’ve also seen small packages of them in stores like Target and Office Depot. However, I noticed the ones found in stores seem lower quality than the actual Iwako brand. My daughter got a set of them and some of the pieces broke pretty quickly. On the other hand, I’ve had some of my Iwako erasers for many years now and we’ve never had any pieces of them break.
These erasers fit perfectly on piano keys so they’re ideal for activities and games on the piano. And, your students will perk up a bit knowing that they’ll get to play with the erasers!
They’re super fun because they are all actually little puzzles that come apart into a bunch of pieces. My students absolutely love taking them apart and putting them back together. If I let them, they could probably spend the whole lesson fidgeting with them!
Here are a few ways we’ve used them during lessons:
- When a student is first learning to find keys on the piano, we put an eraser on each different letter: “Find all the C’s” or “Find all the G’s”.
- When we’re learning about intervals, we use 2 erasers to find intervals on the keys.
- We can place an eraser on each key of a scale.
- We can make chords using 3 erasers.
- We use an eraser as a place marker to find a key, especially when a student’s hand has a large leap between 2 notes.
- We use them to count how many times we’ve practiced something.
- We use 2 erasers to find whole steps and half steps on the piano.
- We use them when we’re learning the names of sharp and flat keys.
- On a paper staff they can represent notes.
Although all of these activities work just fine on an actual piano, they also work great on Piano Practice Pads. In a lot of cases, it’s helpful to have a smaller, more focused space for a student to think through these concepts without dealing with the sound of the piano.
When your student is finished using the Iwako erasers, it’s likely they’ll be returned to you looking like this!
Iwako erasers also make fantastic prizes. My students are always asking if they can take an eraser home, so they’re a natural choice for a prize to earn or win through a practice challenge. I include an Iwako eraser in my student’s 28 Days Of Practice Challenge over Christmas break each year. They fit perfectly in the little envelopes that we use for the challenge.
I’m sure there are plenty of other ways to use Iwako erasers at the piano. I’d love to hear more suggestions on how to use them. Leave a comment below with your ideas!
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How do you keep the erasers on the keys when the student plays that key?
We usually don’t keep them on the keys. They’re more for learning concepts and visualizing which keys to play. Occasionally, when students are learning big leaps, we’ll put an eraser on the key we are leaping to, but we just position it further back on the key so that it doesn’t fall off when the keys is played. (And sometimes it does fall, but it’s not a big deal!)
So useful tips! Thank you! ❤️