How to Teach Ledger Line Notes with Chopsticks & Plasticine

Have you ever had music students who think every ledger line note is middle C? 🙋🏻‍♀️ Not sure how to teach ledger line notes in a way that will stick? Solve the mystery for them quickly with this fun activity.

Ledger lines are a useful tool, but new piano students won’t always see them that way. Our students need to see how necessary and valuable these little lines are.

The best way to do this is not to tell your students but to explore the staff with them. Experiencing the structure of music notation with activities like this one will make the understanding stick in your students’ minds.

This post was originally published in April 2017 and updated in May 2026.

Plasticine and Chopstick Activity

For this quick and effective activity, you’ll need the printed sheet (download yours below), chopsticks and plasticine (or playdough, modelling clay, etc.).

• Ask your student where the chopsticks should go to make the lines of the staff. Help them as needed and give young students sheet music to use as a reference.
• Once they have their chopstick staff ask them about those other notes floating outside the lines. What do they think we need to do to give those notes a home?
• This is where the plasticine comes in. Your student should roll out ledger lines to add to the “chopstick staff” in the clay. Explain where to put them as needed, but let your student try it first and explore the staff with only minimal guidance.

This little exercise is just one way that students can see the staff structure in a new light. For more ideas on how to explore the staff with all ages, read 13 Note Reading Strategies to Recover from Grand Staff Confusion or How to Introduce the Grand Staff BEFORE You Introduce the Grand Staff.

Download the Staff Exploration Printable

Enter your details below and we’ll send you the FREE staff exploration printable you’ll need for the chopsticks and plasticine teaching activity.

Vibrant Music Teaching members, you can access this resource right away inside the VMT library. Not a member yet? Find out more about becoming a member here.

Home Reinforcement

After exploring ledger line notes with chopsticks and plasticine, assign some homework to make sure those ledger line notes will not be forgotten anytime soon.

Flipped Learning Video

This “flipped learning” video introduces the five landmark notes: high C, treble C, treble G, middle C, bass F, bass C and low C. It’s important that piano students have these extra landmark notes on the ledger lines so that they can grasp onto a point of reference wherever they are on the staff.

Send this video to parents for their kids to watch, use it in group lessons or assign it as part of lab time. It’s designed to be clear and concise so that students can watch it and then get on with some written work for reinforcement.

Speaking of written work…

Thinking Theory Workbooks

Ok, we may be biased, but we say the Thinking Theory workbooks are the best around. They accelerate learning while providing plenty of reinforcement for each concept with page layouts that are clean and consistent.

The video above correlates directly to Thinking Theory Book Two page 3, plus several other pages throughout the book. Assign the video for a quick review at home followed by a page of written work.

You can view the full Thinking Theory series here and see more about what makes these workbooks so special.

Want more help teaching music theory concepts in fun and effective ways? Check out our centralised Music Theory hub page.

How do you teach the ledger line notes?

Do you have a go-to method for getting your students to remember these notes? Share it with us in the comments below 👇🏽 or in the Vibrant Music Studio Teachers community on Facebook.

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