March 1, 2013 was the last day of the round robin tournament to determine which five Denton High School chess players will travel to SuperNationals V (April 5-7, Nashville). Read the April 2013 issue of Chess Life for Kids to learn who qualified and how Denton High School raised funds to make the trip possible. Also on Friday, March 1, Dr. Alexey Root used 10 fork problems from Bruce Pandolfini, Beginning Chess, 1993, New York: Fireside.
How to castle queenside for Beginners
How to castle queenside “PBJ"? group writing exercise, as more time on castling rules (especially queenside castling) is needed.
Beginners
Taught the K and Q vs. K mate (knight’s-move-away method) on the demonstration board and then gave the students time to practice it.
The Denton High School chess club’s twenty-second meeting of 2012-2013 came on February 22. Some students played their round robin games to try to qualify to be on our traveling team to SuperNationals V. For the others, Dr. Root taught the activity “Move Order Mystery,” about the Petroff Defense, from Science, Math, Checkmate: 32 Chess Activities for Inquiry and Problem Solving.
February 20, 2013
Castling for Beginners and Intermediates
Taught the rules of castling while in a whole class setting at the demonstration board (called on students for whether castling is possible in certain situations). Then, “Game Theory” challenge from Thinking with Chess: Teaching Children Ages 5-14. Notation was required from Intermediate group.
February 19, 2013
Create-A-Checkmate
For the Beginners, I gave the students examples of what is stalemate and what is checkmate (using a King and Queen vs. King) as models first, on the demonstration board. Then I said, “You have a king and queen. Your partner has a king. Set up 5 different positions that are checkmates and two that are stalemates.” Then they showed me the 7 positions they created.
Denton High School chess club students played notated games to prepare for tomorrow’s match against the University of North Texas chess club.
I taught the “Coco Can’t Wait” activity from my book Science, Math, Checkmate: 32 Chess Activities for Inquiry and Problem Solving (Libraries Unlimited, www.lu.com, 2008, pp. 69-71)
The plan was taught to the Beginning and Intermediate groups. The beginners were called on individually to provide moves (verbally, in notation) for Coco and Grandma, which I made on the demonstration board and wrote in notation on the chalkboard. Some students copied that notation into their scorebooks.
I borrowed Coco can't wait by Taro Gomi (1993) from the Blagg-Huey Library (Texas Woman’s University) Denton - Children's Collection - Big Books to teach the “The Knights Can’t Wait ” activity from my book Science, Math, Checkmate: 32 Chess Activities for Inquiry and Problem Solving(Libraries Unlimited, www.lu.com, 2008, pp. 69-71) In its most straight-forward form, the plan The Knights Can’t Wait can be taught to first- through fifth-grade classrooms.
Denton HS chess team finished second at Region 3 (1-19-13) and finished first at Region 2 (2-2-13). Denton High School is located in the Texas Chess Association Region 2 so is now the Region 2 chess team champion. Both tournaments were covered by the Denton Record-Chronicle, the local newspaper. In the Region 3 tournament, William was first individual and Luis was tenth individual.
Square of the Pawn for Beginners (20 minutes) and for Intermediate Players (35 minutes)
Chess Etiquette and the Square of the Pawn from Children and Chess: A Guide for Educators.
Square of the Pawn and Passed Pawns for Beginners and Experienced Players (2 separate groups of 20 minutes each)
Chess Etiquette and the Square of the Pawn, though with just one partner rather than rotating, from Children and Chess: A Guide for Educators.
