teaching my children age 5&7

Hi,

Does anyone have any tips on teaching young children? My children are aged 5 and 7 and are as keen as mustard and love playing, but I'm limited for time to play them and teach them, and we're in a small town with no chess club.  All of the computer chess games I try can beat them hands down on the easiest level.  Any ideas?

David

Once they know all the moves, they should be able to play together? At that age skill level is probably a bit different but an older child might find a lot of satisfaction in giving a younger sibling one or more pieces ahead.

I, too, question how to teach young children how to play. My grandson, age 9, lives a distance away. I would like to use the facilities at chess.com, but so far I am finding that easy checkmates occur. I would like to know how I can set up a game on chess.com where my rooks or queen are not present.

For young kids, just remember to keep it fun and exciting first and foremost.

Obviously they are not likely to become grandmasters or even professionals, so at that age just lay the foundation and try to hold their interest with it, and don't bog them down with too much boring theory or lectures. If you can get them to love it early, then there is a better chance that they will pick it up seriously when they get a bit older (and it is not too difficult or time consuming for a teenage player to reach 1400-1500 rating, which is pretty much the scholastic ceiling in small tournaments).

If teaching at all, just keep it short and sweet (5-10 minutes tips). Also try to change things up every now and again, like introduce them to Chess 960, invite a friend over and let them play bughouse, have them start from certain opening positions, have them try to win from certain endgame positions, ect. Just as long as they are active and involved :)

I teach chess classes in six public schools here in San Francisco and the majority of the students are elementary school age. One of my top classes are all Kindergarten age kids. At this age, they are willing to follow instructions fearlessly as long as you use repetitive teaching. I started my group, who had no prior experience playing, with the games rules. Check and checkmate came next. We then moved on to special rules such as castling, en passant and promotion.  After the the rules had been learned we started in on basic tactics such as pins, skewers, forks and discovered attacks. The class, which met once each week was able to move on to opening principles by the third week. Going into weeks five and six, we started looking at Grandmaster's games and how what we had learned applied to the game demonstrations I was giving. At 5 and 7, your kids will be able to take in a lot more knowledge than you give them credit for.

However, the trick and this is the most important concept to grasp as a teacher, is making the lessons fun and interesting. Here are a couple of links that provide PDF downloads to help you in tour teaching.

http://www.nychesskids.com/main/

http://www.knowchess.com/instruction_main.htm

Both sites offer free PDF downloads designed for teaching chess to children and the PDF files are free. I use them in my teaching program extensively. Lessons should be short. My lectures run no more than 20 minutes, then its time to play. You have to correct their moves constantly, but they'll soon catch on.

If they miss a potential capture (either against their opponent or a capture of one of their pieces, ask them questions prior to them making their move such as "do you see any pieces you can capture with your___?" or "is there any piece on the board about to capture your___?" Make them search for the answer before showing it to them. Remember, each child is different in their abilities to grasp chess knowledge. Also remember, every child has the ability to become a really good chess player.

 Let me know if you have any questions. I teach chess to kids for a living and can help you with ideas regarding keeping it interesting for them. At this point, they are too young for many of the available books and software, but this will soon change as they learn the game. Chess is a wonderful was to create a bond with your kids that will remain strong even when they become teenagers (at which point everything you do as a parent will be totally uncool). Let me know how the teaching goes and stay in touch if you have any questions.

my idea for teaching them to play against computers is tell them to play the most random moves ever like 1.e4 ** 2.Ke2 or 1.g3or something oalong those lines cause the computer will start playing like cra and themn theyl have a chance

Most computer programs aren't designed to handle ridiculous opening moves are they? They usually start off nothing but a pre-made opening database, and then only start calculating when they hit the end of their book lines.

You will have already noted these other ideas for levelling-the-playing-field?

These previous discussions may interest you ...

My recommendation would be to get Houdini if you have Windows and use that to setup positions to play against them on the computer.

Answer from parent:

I also have young kids. In my opinion the key to get kids get a long term interest in chess is the social factor, not skill training with computers.

Better to play with your kids not so often but having fun when doing it, than to kill the spirit by computorbased training with no soul.

It you don´t have enough time maybe friends and relatives can help you?

I still have my fathers chessboard. He was no good player, but he got me dedicated to chess.

Thankyou for your wonderful tips!

i have personalized book to offer. i mean i should know your skills then,, i will make book for u. exclusively. from oppening to endgame. it is lessons that is good of 15 sessions