Teach Chess To Young Children So They Remember It

Disclosure: While this post was definitely not paid for (I did pay for the game) I wanted to tell you about our love for board games. There are amazon affiliate links throughout and if you click them you might earn me a Starbucks. That would be so nice this week.

It’s Board Game Friday!! What does this mean? Simple this is the day the family and I decided on board games and play. I love Fridays. This week I picked Harry Potter’s Wizard Chess Set! Soccerboy (Antonio) got this game for Christmas from us. He’s a big Harry Potter Fan (like myself) and he absolutely LOVES Chess so the two went hand-in-hand.

Harry Potter’s Wizard Chess Set is NOT like the game before you ask. No, they do NOT move around the board by themselves. Nor do they kill each other, etc. This set has two mesh bags (black/silver) with the pieces fitting nicely inside each bag. The board and game rules fit nicely inside the sturdy box. Sadly the pieces are light plastic, I don’t know why but I thought they would be heavier, maybe even stone. But each piece has detail in them.

Teach Chess to Young Children:

When did you teach your kids to play chess? Years ago I was homeschooling Antonio and he expressed interest in watching Chess on television. I saw how much love he had just watching it. Not wanting him to miss out on anything I went to the library and borrowed a really old book on learning chess. I figured we could learn the game together and play it too. Even if he didn’t like the game at least he’d know how to play it by the time we were done reading it. At this time I simply bought a dual set Chess/Checkers.

Teaching Beginner’s Chess to Young Children Really Is Easy

The first thing the book taught was step by step. You must introduce them to the board, the spaces there are and the pieces. Each piece has a certain name and rules of the game. We learned how to use the pawns first. I lined them up just like they’d play in a game but without any of the other pieces. We played like this for about two weeks. He was getting bored but I knew this was part of it. He had definitely caught on and since he did I showed him how to play checkers too and he loved playing that game. This would be what we called pawn vs pawn.

Pawns first:  make sure they only play pawns before ever introducing them to a new player. The next players you will introduce are bishops, rooks, knights and the Queens.

Pawns: They can move forward, one step….unless it is their first time moving then they can go 2 steps forward. These are the smallest pieces on the board, to me they reminded me of a little lady wearing a dress.

Bishops:  Can’t jump over pieces. Can only go in diagonal directions (4) until it is interrupted by its own. This one has always looked like a bishop’s hat to me.

Rooks:  This castle looking piece can go four directions, up, down, left to right.

Knights:  These little horses move in an “L” shape.  Same directions as a rook but 1 out, 2 up or 2 our and 1 up.

Queens:  You can move as many squares as you desire and in any direction until you get to another player. The Queen can take the piece, but must also take their spot on the board. (no jumping over pieces)

King:  If you don’t already know he is the most important piece on the board. The moment he is taken out you lose and the game is over.

But before moving on to the next character makes sure it is that particular character with the pawns only. Eventually, move more than one against the pawn until you have the entire team on the board.

Teaching Nicoli how to play chess young is going to be a lot of fun. He’s already set up his pawns so I’m out! Do you have any tips?