King - part 2

Concepts to reinforce:

- King moves 

New concepts to learn: 

- King can also capture on square at any direction

Game prep:

- showed King moves again, one square at a time 

Game:

 Placed random pieces of opposite from King's color on the board.  

 

- practice capturing them one move at the time 

Fun!

Introducing the King

Concepts to reinforce:

- Rook moves 

New concepts to learn: 

- King moves one square at the time

- King is slow (compared to Rook)

Game prep:

- showed the king moves

- reminded rook moves 

Game:

- place the king on the board

 

 - move king around in any direction. Make sure she knows king has to stop after moving one square unlike the rook 

- build the double square with Lego's 

 

- let the King march one square at a time around the board 

- make the "entrance" into the central square

 

- let the King find its way into the little "house"

- return the King outside the "house"

- add Rook 

 

 

- asked her which piece would get to the house first? King or Rook? Which one is faster? 

- show how fast the Rook can get into the house compared to the slow moving King

- play a racing game. Who gets to the house first?

- while playing the game make sure to show that Rook can also move like a king one square at a time while inside the house

- let the pieces go outside again 

It was fun!!

Reinforcing: board setup, names of pieces, ranks and files

Concepts to reinforce:

- Board setup

- Names of the pieces

- Ranks and files 

Activities to reinforce

- together we setup the board

- repeated names of the pieces 

- pointed on the letters of the files A though H repeatedly (this is A file, this is B file etc)
- pointed on the numbers of the ranks 1 through 8 repeatedly 
- let her repeat with me both ranks and files at least once

5 min game: 

Build "walls" around the board in straight line and call them. This is the "wall" along rank 1, this is wall along file e etc etc. 

 

Rook + introducing ranks and files

Concepts to reinforce:

- Board setup

- Names of the pieces

- Rook moves

New concepts to learn: 

- Ranks and files

Game prep:

- together we setup the board

- repeated names of the pieces 

- pointed on the letters of the files A though H repeatedly (this is A file, this is B file etc)
- pointed on the numbers of the ranks 1 through 8 repeatedly 
- let her repeat with me both ranks and files at least once

Game:

 Gave her lego cubes and asked to make any straight lines just like the way the rook moves from letter A to letter H or from number 1 to number 8. 

 

After we finished building lines I repeated the names of the ranks and files. For example: if she decided to build along the rank would repeat (this is 6th rank, this is 4th rank etc). 

Placed the rook of her choice along the open "road". Repeated that the rook is going along the B file, rook is going along the D file etc. 

Then she would name herself the name of the "road" along which the rook walks. It was fun :). 

Hello Rook - Part 2

Concepts to reinforce:

- Board setup

- Names of the pieces

- Rook moves

New concepts to learn:

- Rook can capture a piece

- Rook captures in straight line

- After rook captures it stays on the square of the piece it took

Game prep:

- together we setup the board

- repeated names of the pieces

- talked about original rook position on the board

- removed all the pieces and moved rook in straight lines all over the board

- showed her that the rook can "eat" the piece by occupying its place 

Game:

Placed a rook of her choice on the board. Placed all the pieces of opposite color except the king all over the board. The rook "eats" the piece -> piece goes outside the board -> the rook takes the place of the piece it "ate".  Sometimes I would count all the pieces the Rook "are". It was fun! :)

 

Hello Rook! - Part 1

Concepts to reinforce:

- Board setup

- Names of the pieces 

 

New concepts to learn:

- Rook moves in straight line only (has to stop in order to make a turn)

- Rook cannot jump over other pieces 

- Rook can go long distances 

 

Game prep:

 

- Together we set up the board

- Repeated names of the pieces

- Showed the white and black rooks 

- Removed all the pieces and asked to show original rooks' position on the board

- Showed that the rook moves up and down, left and right in straight line

Game:

Aligned Lego pieces in straight line and explained those are the walls you cannot cross. It was easier to see straight lines for the rook to move. We moved the rook around using correct rook moves both short ones and long ones.  I would start counting each move. On the picture below it was three long rook moves to go around the board. 

 

Added a Lego tower - "present". Rook has to go using correct rook moves without crossing the Lego walls to get to the present. I would again start counting the moves so that it's clear that it's not one long move but few ones. 

 

Moved the "present" to another central location.  Asked about couple different ways to get to it.  Counted the moves in both cases. 

 

Used couple examples from Igor Sukhin's books such as those:

 

This is it for the first Rook lesson.

Hello Lego and Chess!

 This blog is about teaching chess to small children. I recently started teaching my 2.5 year old daughter. She is showing a lot of interest and every single day we learn chess through playing.  Every time we play I chose a new "game" based on what we learnt last time with new elements added. The "lessons" are very short, perhaps only 10-15 min but we come back to them very often, at lease once a day.  She started asking for it more often lately so we play few times a day sometime.

We have already done a few games so I will try to catch up to what she knows already via few posts to come.

At this point all I use is a basic tournament plastic chess set with vinyl board and Lego duplo bricks (2x2) of different colors.