Positive Chess has partnered with Game on Fitness. Our Active Party Chess Plus Summer Camp will have the amazing fitness coach Amy Smith leading our afternoon Session with the Agility and Dance. Her experience and expertise are an amazing addition to our summer program. We are very excited to be working with Amy. Check out Game On Fitness’s website and facebook page for more details on the wonderful services they offer.
Why do we get burnt badly in a class full of little children, especially with children hungry for chess but naughty enough to play catch with pawns and pieces? The problem begins with the values upon which your teaching approach is based. Many teachers or parents view their children as empty vessels, ignorant creatures waiting for their brain buckets to be filled by the parents’ wisdom and knowledge. But the truth is that children are more elastic in respect to learning, their minds fertile to learning new and exciting things.
The desire to fill these buckets, when they don’t assimilate, leads to irritation, enough to set your whiskers on fire. But if you consider them as beautiful young minds waiting to absorb the seeds and sparks of exciting new things to learn and grow as they evolve, then the class becomes fun and memorable.
Being a chess parent (or a chess teacher of little kids) is like being a gardener for a rose bed, one that shines with different colours of roses when they start blooming. The problem is that we will have to nurture it with patience, time and tolerance.
IDEA:
Shorter classes, properly structured with different activities are the best. Younger kids find it difficult to keep their concentration during long classes. So make sure you shorten your class while they are still happily engaged.
Don’t push. Many success-driven parents fail to see this. They push, they want their child to become the next super GM, stress them out and make them hate the game forever – not because of the game but because of how it was presented.
It is fun that motivates children more than anything. The fun of discovering something new and exciting. The game should not be presented like a dictionary waiting to be memorized, but as a colouring book that should be lived and experienced.
IDEA: Games and gamification. Kids love games. Quiz up the class. Give points for engagement, correct answers and negative points for negative behavior (the point system has to be explained clearly beforehand).
IDEA: Activity-based classes. Turn passive lecture-type classes into different activities. One example is to let your students make their own chess set. The pieces can be made by using recyclable household items (example: bottle caps, pen caps, clay, nuts/bolts, but make sure they are big enough. Keep a close eye on them so they don’t swallow these. Use caution with little ones.) and the chess board can be drawn on an A3 sheet and coloured by them. Let your imagination run wild and you can come up with different activities (or google them).
Pushing students with facts and difficult concepts will only make them bored. Eventually, they will lose their interest. What matters more is constantly instilling a sense of awe, feeding their curiosity about chess. Encourage the habit of asking questions.
IDEA: Chess and Math. Chess can be used as a platform through which kids can hone their logic and even Math skills. Each piece has a point attached to it. So, three pawns equal three points while a queen and two bishops equal fifteen. Using this relatedness, Chess-Math games can be invented and used as exercises during a class. But remember – younger kids might find it difficult when you need more than two hands to solve a Chess-Math puzzle.
IDEA: And finally: kids love challenges! Many logical puzzles like the famous eight-queens puzzle or exercises like Pawn Mowers can be a fun and challenging exercise for kids.
Combine words with images and stories. Combine music and dance with ideas. Combine abstract concepts with real things that children can understand and weave the thread of a story around it. This helps form a concrete basic understanding of the fundamental concepts and ideas in chess.
This unforgettable chess adventure is designed to advance young chess player’s skills, move by move. Discover mini-games, brain-twisters and more at every attraction. Pick up chess tips and skills as you ride in bumper cars and the Ferris wheel. Polish up your chess strategy and tactics, opening, middle game and endgame and use what you’ve learned to win. You’ll have lots of fun while you learn more about the serious business of playing – and winning – chess!
For example, the knight is the most difficult piece for kids to understand because of the difficult logic behind the moves. It really helps to nail down the concept when you ask how many kids have visited a zoo, show them pictures, or even make a trip to a zoo if that helps. You can continue to tell stories about how horses were used in early days and about knights in medieval times. This helps them relate the piece with images and stories.
IDEA: Chess History. Chess has evolved for over two thousand years to what it is today. It has a rich history, dotted with numerous exciting stories waiting to be told. You can start with how the chess board and the pieces evolved. Show them pictures of old chess sets from different times.
Learning doesn’t stop with fun. The purpose of a class is to help children discover how much fun chess is, develop their curiosity for the game and continue to develop their understanding of game concepts. A parent or teacher has to look at the big picture. It’s not enough for kids to leave a class grinning and jumping. That is only one aspect of evaluating success – efficiency. The other is effectiveness – being able to walk in the right direction with all the classes – the proper learning journey for the kids to develop gradually in chess. For this to happen, it is very helpful to follow a curriculum. There are both free and premium curricula on the internet, all a Google search away. The other way to do it is to sit, think and plan your classes in advance.
by J Arun from ChessBase
It’s a reasonably long and involved game. My kids love it so much, they get so involved. You can see the gears whirring, the clogs ticking. The brain being exercised.
What happens if you put your pawn there? Is mummy likely to take it with her queen? How do you get to your ultimate goal of killing your opponents king?
I’m always surprised when I’m busy concentrating on a little pawn when suddenly my king is under attack.
My kids are good at attacking!
Just remembering how all the pieces move is enough to stretch my memory. There are heaps of other moves that you can read up on as well.
Chess is a great 3D game and exercises both parts of your brain. As we get older we focus more on one side, the left side and let our right side of the brain get lazy. The more we use both sides of the brain, the better. Brains need to be used and exercised to function at their maximum capacity.
Clever people play chess. FACT.
To start with, it’s enough to work out how each piece moves. After a few games, your kids will be planning their grand attack strategy. They’ll also start to think about whether their pieces are going to come under attack when they move them into a new place.
As they progress, they’ll start to see that for each move there are several possible things that they COULD do. But they’re only allowed to make one move. So they’ll start to think through the possible out comes of each move and decide which strategy is best.
When you’re involved and enjoying something, you’re more likely to concentrate for longer. Do that frequently and you’ll soon improve your attention span.
And the attention span of your kids.
A study in 1991 looked at reading performance in elementary schools and compared it with children who didn’t play chess. The kids who played chess were above the national average for reading skills (and they were from a district that overall was below the national average.) I’m sure it’s just to do with getting all those bits of your brain working.
Creativity is linked with the right side of your brain. Chess helps your children to come up with original, creative thoughts.
See? All those benefits just from playing a game.
The best part of all these brain-inducing benefits of playing chess is that they just come naturally. You just play chess and have fun. You don’t need to worry about the benefits, it’s not like sitting down to study a book.
Article found on snotty-noses.com/blog/chess-children
————————–
The way people playchess gives us insights into their personality.
Chess is one of the oldest games in history. Played by everyone from ancient kings to today’s online players, the game is enjoyed by millions. Countries like Russia have always viewed chess as a way to show intelligence, while others have used it as a way to bring people together. A game that stands for history and genius, there is much to learn from people based on how they play .
I’ve played chess ever since I was little, and the more I play the more I realize how emotions affect the game. For instance, whenever I make a bad move I start to play more aggressively. This is caused by frustration, but also a strategy to force the other player into making an error. Small decisions like this can give you great insight into the personality of your opponent.
Sometimes when I interview someone, I ask him or her if they’d like to play me in chess. Besides wanting to just play, I can also look for signs to gain a better understanding of the applicant. Next time you sit down for a game of chess, look for these three things in your opponent. It’ll help you understand them in a way you never thought possible.
One of the worst feelings in chess is when you lose a crucial piece. If this happens early, chances are you’re going to have to work the entire game to climb back. This is one of the most critical times for the mentality of a chess player. Not being able to forget the error will destroy your ability to come back. In these situations, pay special attention to how the other player reacts. Does he immediately show signs of anger and resentment? Does he brush it off, or show no emotion at all?
Besides an initial reaction, take note of how their strategy changes. One of my greatest weaknesses is that I become overly aggressive when I’m losing, because I feel anxious to even the playing field. The best chess players are able to keep their cool, and adjust their strategy without losing focus. These are the kinds of people you strive for, and the ones that I try to learn from. When your company makes a crucial mistake, you want people who can deliver under pressure and not panic.
In chess, there are all types of ways to play with time. Some games can give players hours to think; others can be less than 5 minutes. One of the things to look for is if the person you’re going up against plays differently based on the time given. The best can concentrate for hours without getting distracted. While long and short games both need some of the same skills, they incorporate a variety of different strategies.
Can the other person react quickly and not get flustered? One of the keys in being great in chess and in business is adapting to certain scenarios. The changes in time helps bring that ability to light.
Next time you’re interviewing someone and you ask him or her to play chess with you, see how he or she goes about it. A common scenario is the applicant will play conservatively and let you win.
Letting you win is not what you want to see. To test this, make a dumb move in the beginning of the game and see if he or she takes advantage. What you want is for the interviewee to try his or her hardest to beat you. That is because the best people in your company have to want to win, and that needs to be prevalent even in the first chess game you play.
AJ Agrawal from inc.com
What a fantastic day, eight of our players from our chess club went to the Queen City Classic chess tournament at Paul Brown Stadium. Our kids performed very well and all got medals for completing all 5 games during the 10 hour long tournament day. Two of our students won trophies and our 5th and 7th grade teams were about 1 point away from getting school trophies!
The tournament which had about 600 kids was a great experience for our players, we had lots of laughs and smiles with a few tears along the way.
Thanks to all the parents for letting their kids to the tournament and supporting them!
