As a former music and piano teacher, I just wanted to give a couple of pointers to help out the little ones...
1) Playing chords that are too big for your hand is a normal part of piano at any level...Think about it. Most classical composers are men...Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Mozart. Women and many men don't have as large a hand as the composers. There is a basic, standard technique used by pianist of rolling from the bottom up. The lower notes of the chord are played almost like a grace note, before the beat...the final note lands on the beat.
2)Limiting practice to a specific time doesn't make the best practice method. Instead of 15 minutes at a time, which from 6 under is a good number for each practice session, the parent should sit with the child and teach them how to practice correctly.
There is a phrase that "Practice makes perfect." Untrue...the correct phrase is "Perfect practice makes perfect." Bad habits are hard and frustrating to correct with music.
A better way to practice is to focus on improving each song just a little. While sitting with your child ask, "How many notes can you play without a misread note?" If they go to ten notes and make an error, teach them to correct the error (maybe 3 times at the measure), then go back to the beginning and play it and see if they do better.
15 minutes is a good time frame, but they like it better if you say, "We are going to play each piece 5 (if they are super short 10) times and see if we can make any improvement."
This practice method is preferred in little ones, because they can understand 5 times a song better than 15 minutes as applied to practicing. If they know the songs by the end of the week, they go through them 5 times each and are done! But they have to be played correctly.
Versus...15 minutes of...lying on the bench...only playing one song twice in 15 minutes...throwing a fit of not wanting to be there...dawdling 10 of the 15 minutes.
3) Composing music with the notes of a simple song or the C scale/chord helps with ear training, but true composing will come with a good background of theory, ie, scales and chords. Composing is what helps keep teens loving piano. If they can get a lot of theory under their belt at a young age, it will be more fun later.
4) It takes about 2 years to read music as quickly and as easily as reading books. There are a lot of notes to learn, not to mention counting. If you can get them through this rudimentary and boring part, they usually will end up liking it. It takes a while though...the younger they are, usually the longer it takes. That's why some wait until after they are a little older than 5 or 6.
