To get the best out of the Dogs and Birds approach it is recommended to use the animal and blank books in parallel.
We encourage this by selling them together at a 18% discount. This set contains:
Such a beautiful, well thought out program. Really engaging for kids (and adults) it makes learning fun and easy
Please add more levels! Unknown on 11th Jan 2021
Great book for beginners. It’s so easy to learn and understand basic things. Definitely order books by this author. Tanya on 7th Jan 2021
Wonderfully thought through teaching and learning resource. An absolute must for anyone with young beginners! Unknown on 27th Dec 2020
I cannot recommend this book highly enough. It is beautifully presented, has a story thread, lovely drawings and younger learners just love them. As a teacher it gives me great joy to see children progressing and loving learning how to play the piano. The rhythm exercises are also great for co ordination. I used to worry that children would not progress easily to the normal musical notation (ie. without dogs and birds in the notes) but this does not seem to be an issue at all. Jo Wookey on 21st Dec 2020
I am always looking at new and better approaches to teaching small children.
This starter pack the children love, due to the stories revolving around the 7 friends and the accompanying colourful illustrations. Educationally, the material is sound and singing and listening is instilled from the beginning, which I think is vital.
The book does not ‘plod’ and by the end of the book, the pupils are confident and ready to burst into the next set of repertoire of Nursery Rhymes, using both hands together. This can be a difficult time, but playing tunes the children know steers them skilfully through this challenging stage. Liz Foulds on 14th Jan 2019
I use these as extra books for teaching my young students to read music.
I would definitely recommend using them alongside other more thorough method books, as there is very little explanation of concepts, I think it would be difficult to use them on their own.
Having said that, they're beautifully illustrated, I love the 'story' elements and I'm going to start using them with the stave and animal tiles which I think makes them very effective.
I'm very pleased with my purchase. Neil on 27th Aug 2015
This book has to be both the easiest and the fastest way a child (or even an adult!) can start to play the piano and a great intro for learning to read music. The concept behind this book is very clever yet so simple that anyone should be able to play the songs in this book very quickly. For example: Dog = note D, Cat = note C, Bird = note B, etc, etc. Genius!!! My son (aged 5) absolutely loves this book. Mitra McCarthy on 13th Sep 2014
My boys (4 & 9) were glued to the piano when we received our books. They were fighting for piano time and who would get to play the songs first. My older son was sight reading and my younger was working through the melody using the animals. I've never had so much song and music fill the house. The books are now incorporated into my 4-year old's lessons and the first songs he wants to practice. We both love that the pages include such details with the animals and the related history or facts associated with the songs, often sparking wonderful discussions. BoyceLA on 13th Sep 2014