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.