Starting a Chess Club

Hello all. I am a teacher at n elementary school and want to start a Chess Club.
I’d like to know if any of you have done something like this. What grade level / ages would you recommend? (I was planning on grades 3-5, ages 8 - 11) as well as what do I need to get this off of the ground as it would be ME running this and getting it going. Thank you for all and any feedback.

My goal would be to introduce students to the game and teach them the basic game and moves, that sort of thing.

Usually you want to stat a chess club with 20 minutes of instruction, followed by 40 minutes of game time.  There are so many free lesson plans online, I would just google and find one that you like.   US chess has their own guide Here. Chess.com has their own lesson plan Here

As far as equipment, I would skip clocks right now and just buy the cheapest chess sets that fit your needs.  Unweighted plastic pieces and paper boards work fine.  I know some people like silicon pieces, since you can just throw them into the dishwasher between sessions, but those are more expensive.   If you get 2.25" squares and 3.75" kings, you can also use those for official tournaments, but that might be too big for your space. 

A lot more students watch than play, which is fine. It is better to have too few sets than too many, since that is your own investment. 

You can also print logbooks(really log sheets) and get some golf pencils to keep track of the games. 

You're also going to need a ladder to keep ratings, which again, you can google ladder software and find one that you like. 

Setting up a chess ladder helps a lot. Free software at https://www.add-ins.com/free-products/chess-ranking-assistant.htm

Ol

Thank you for the feedback. To clarify this is elementary grades (ages 8 - 12) and at a public school, so it would be right after school. I was wanting to do over the board, hands on type club since they spend so much time online these days. 

At that age (even up through middle school) the majority of kids mostly want to play.  They need to know how the pieces move.  Some of them need to know some of the basic opening principles and tactics.  Their skill level is unlikely to be very good.

Now you need to decide if you are running a club for the enjoyment of the kids or if you are running it to improve their skill level.  That decision will drive how much time you spend on instruction.

As far as a ladder goes, one option is to simply schedule time for each person to have one more or less serious game that counts towards the ladder standings and the remaining time for casual play.  Example for 60 minutes:  1-3 minutes to decide who is going to be there for the meeting; 0-15 minutes for instruction (varies depending on your goals); 20-45 minutes for a fairly serious ladder game; remainder for casual play between those that finished the serious game.

The ladder could be a challenge ladder (kids decide who to play and the challenge is for position on the ladder) or a Swiss-paired ladder (learn Swiss pairings or get a pairing program) or a simple excel spreadsheet (pair #1 player vs #2 player, #3 vs #4, etc. - based on who showed up for that meeting, and have some number of different opponents before you get matched up again with somebody you already played.  The standing on the ladder can be based on some type of rating system or be as simple as adding up the number of game points scored in ladder games (the latter method promotes attendance).

PS A number of people will find the idea of letting kids play chess for enjoyment (instead of focusing on teaching them to play better) to be the equivalent of heresy.  I've been the chief director/arbiter for LOTS of scholastic tournaments with hundreds of kids (thousands of kids on occasion) and I don't think there is a single best way that will be best for every kid.  Figure out what level of seriousness you are aiming for.  A more serious club might have fewer but more dedicated players.  A less serious club might have more players but with many coming only sporadically.  A club that is not enjoyable might trend towards zero players.  Balance what you want to do with what you are able to do and then go for it.

wap

Chesskid.com is really good even for older children.

I did this for 2 years and it was a great experience. I taught kids from 1st grade to 5th grade. I would go to 5 different schools during the week and it was in 8 week sessions. Teaching the rules at the beginning of each session is important. Some kids will already claim to know the rules but I would make them sit with the rest of the class and maybe "help with the lesson." 

Kids don't like to sit for too long so it's important you keep up with them. After teaching the rules I would start with a puzzle of the day and let them take turns trying to solve it. After that I would do an interactive lesson for maybe 20-25 minutes and leave the last 30 minutes for playing.

It is good to include some chess history too and go over some famous games. I recommend doing a lot of research on your lesson ahead of time because kids will ask you a lot of questions, and you will want to be prepared.

Also one more very important rule - DO NOT PLAY THE KIDS! This is always a lose lose situation. You need to keep your attention on the whole room and make sure everyone is doing okay and feels included. You will probably have to monitor behavior more than you expect.

I’m 8 years old anyway and I’m good at chess already. Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced, I’m Intermediate.

I don’t need to learn the rules of chess.

You may already know the basic rules of play, but if you plan on playing in tournaments there are a lot of tournament rules you will need to know (four decades of experience as an arbiter has shown that even some NMs, FMs, IMs and GMs don't know all of the details in those rules).

You're 500... That's okay... but theres 8 year olds who are Fide Masters...

I'm 12 years old i are good in chess intermediate is my level

Any update or insights on how it's going? I just started a club backup (2 year Covid shutdown) at my kids' school roughly the same ages. We have 80 students and we have to utilize 3 different classrooms. Any thoughts on organization would be appreciated.

ben

I am just finishing my first year of running a chess club at my kids elementary.

I had 2nd-5th graders. 10 sessions in the fall and 10 in the spring. This year I loosely followed a free curriculum from chesskid.com and also supplemented my teaching with some videos I structured each session with 10 min free play/puzzles, a 10-15 min lesson of the day and then free chess for the rest of the hour.

Lessons learned, next year I’m going to be more structured about who plays who and had a bit more of a ladder for challenges.

I’m also going to use the chess steps method next year. Which has an amazing trainers manual and workbooks for the kids with tons of exercises and puzzles. It really focuses on basics and fundamentals (during step one) which in turn goes a LONG way to teaching board vision, king safety, and blundering less.

Chess-steps.com.