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Now that I can play the scales I've learned much better, my piano teacher wants me to play them with more rhythm and melody and in 4 beat time.

He showed me how to define the 1st note of the C Major scale and then play the next 3 notes softer.

The trouble is while I'm trying to count I inveriably put my 4th finger on F instead of 'thumb under' and mess up the scale because I am thinking of the 4 beat rhythm and lose the scale.

I realise that I can slow the process down to a crawl but does anyone have any tips please.

Consider busting up the problem into chunks. For example try counting and playing the first 4 notes only with just the RH - concentrating on getting that F with the thumb - if that is not manageable just try the first 3 notes etc. Then maybe go to 5 notes or add the LH with 4 notes and counting etc.

Or pause deliberately on 3 and/or 4 for example giving you timte to work out what's next...

Generally, bust it up until you have something you can manage and build incrementally from there... This is the sort of thing my teacher has me doing - treat everything as problem solving rather than unfocused repetition...

The way my teacher has her students do this is by playing a scale for 1 8va in quarter notes, 2 8va in eighth notes, 3 8va in triplets, and 4 8va in sixteenth notes. Works extremely well, I must say.

As far as problems crossing the thumb under, slow repetitive practice paying careful attention to that area of the scale is the only way to get it right.

There are all kinds of ways to play scales:
in opposing directions, with different
rhythms and/or accents, etc. My opinion
on scales is that they are not that
important. I see them as primarily
a physical exercise to develop the
skill of finger crossing, which is
an important technique in playing. And
since the finger crossing motion is
similar in all scales, one could argue
that you could get by with practicing
just one scale. And since the C maj.
scale is the most difficult of them
all (the most difficult thing to
play on the piano is a passage on
all white keys, because then there are
no black keys to give the hands
reference points for finding the notes),
the argument can be made that you could
get by with practicing only it.

I used to try to practice every scale
in every key, maj., and the three types
of min., but now I just do one repetition
of the C maj. scale and the C maj.
arpeggio (triads: root position and
first and second inversions), mainly
as a brief warmup before I dig into
what I consider the real stuff: diatonic
(not chromatic) interval scales. I
personally have found diatonic interval
scales to be the single best technical
study on the piano--if there is a
secret to fine piano playing, this
is apparently it. My technical workout
now consists entirely of extensive
practice of diatonic interval scales.
There is a detailed discussion of
diatonic interval scales here:

http://www.pianoworld.com/ubb/ubb/ultimatebb.php?/topic/37/1529.html#000003

Sorry, Gyro, but all the scales are important in order to gain a thorough grasp of theory. They are, after all, the basic building block of tonal music.

Don't count. Emphasizing every fourth note creates such a natural pulse, especially in a four octave scale, that you shouldn't have to count. Counting is distracting you from your fingering.

Tap out the rhythm on a table top with your hand as if you were playing a hand drum and sing the scale or try to hear the scale in your head. Do this until you get your brain locked into the rhythm and then play the scale and try to keep that same pulse while concentrating on your fingering. Going slow and making false starts and mistakes is part of learning, but you will get through it.

What makes this hard at first is that each accented note is played by a different pair of fingers. This will eventually force you to develop evenness and control so that you can play an accented note with any finger on either hand as needed.

My teacher has me play scales as follows:

2 octaves as quarters
4 octaves as 8ths
3 octaves as 8th-note triplets
4 octaves as 16ths

I count and use the metronome at all times when playing scales. Playing the different groups gets you used to counting in different ways and not worrying about when your fingers are switching. The important thing in my experience was to learn to think in terms of groups of 3 and 4 for the finger switches (I don't play finger 5 at all in these scales)