Time Required:
5 minutes
Tools Required:
- Pictures or video of children playing chess
- Regular-sized chess board
- A few regular-sized pieces (including a king)
- At least one of the giant pieces
Chess Objective(s):
Students will be able to:
- Loosely describe a game of chess
- Visualize what a “real” chess match looks like
General Objective(s):
- Practice visualization skills
Description:
This activity is primarily a very short group discussion to orient students to what they will be learning.
Introduce yourself if this is a new class or has new students.
Core talking points:
- Today we’re going to start learning about a game called “Chess” (show pictures or video)
- Two people sit across from each other and take turns moving pieces (they may be familiar with checkers, so it may be useful to make that connection)
- Chess is a game played on a board made up many squares (show board)
- The game is over when one player has captured the other player’s king (show the king)
- Chess is usually played at a table or on the floor, but you can play it on the computer or in the car, and today, we’ll be learning how to play outside in a very fun way, with very big pieces (show the big piece)
Here is an example video that can be shown to the students:
Variation:
Use this as a review prior to starting each lesson until the children are comfortable with the concepts.
Description for Parents
We begin each lesson with a review of chess basics, such as number of players, colors, and piece names.