Dr. Alexey Root taught the en passant rule using material from Children and Chess: A Guide for Educators to all three groups at Greenhill School. The beginners then paired up to play Pawn Games and raised their hands when en passant opportunities arose in their games.
Dr. Alexey Root will be signing her books about chess in education (and libraries!) at the Texas Library Association Annual Conference. Look for Alexey Root in the exhibit hall in the ABC-CLIO/Libraries Unlimited booths, 2122 and 2123, on Thursday, April 10. A complete list of authors at the conference can be found at this link.
Dr. Root hopes to see you in San Antonio!
After a brief review of the en passant rule, Dr. Root taught the Criteria Challenge activity from Science, Math, Checkmate: 32 Chess Activities for Inquiry and Problem Solving (2008, pp. 28-30) to Denton High School students. The five high school students attending were able to solve all four challenges, working in groups of 2 and of 3.
Dr. Root taught en passant to the Intermediate and Advanced groups. After showing the rule on the demonstration board, each group tried the Create challenge from Thinking with Chess: Teaching Children Ages 5-14. This challenge involves creating a 10 move, notated game with three en passant captures.
For the Beginners, Dr. Root 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 Dr. Root said, “You have a king and queen. Your partner has a king. Set up 4 different positions that are checkmates and two positions that are stalemates.” Then they showed Dr. Root (one position at a time) the six positions they created.
Dr. Alexey Root tested pairs of students on basic checkmates. Beginners were tested on king and two rooks versus king. Intermediates were tested on king and queen versus queen. There was not time to test some of the intermediate students and all of the advanced students.
Five Denton High School students, a parent, and volunteer chess coach Dr. Alexey Root visited the University of North Texas Chess Club on Thursday, Feb. 27 from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. All of the high school students are seniors and this visit gave them a chance to meet UNT students. One senior is definitely going to UNT next year and the others are still considering their options. Everyone played chess for fun. That is, we did not keep track of wins and losses.
For the Beginners, Dr. Root 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 Dr. Root said, “You have a king and queen. Your partner has a king. Set up 5 different positions that are checkmates and two positions that are stalemates.” Then they showed Dr. Root (one position at a time) the 7 positions they created.
Dr. Alexey Root taught the beginners how to checkmate with a king and two rooks against a king. The students volunteered the legal moves for the black king while Dr. Root maneuvered the white rooks on the demonstration board. Then students practiced the checkmate pattern with partners. The intermediate students learned the king and queen checkmate from one of their colleagues, who taught it the same way Dr. Root had in the fall.
Dr. Alexey Root informed Denton High School chess club students that this coming Thursday, February 27, there will be a visit to the University of North Texas chess club. Then two of the students who played in the Texas Scholastic Championship showed their games to their fellow club members.
Dr. Alexey Root taught Battleship Chess from Children and Chess: A Guide for Educators to all three St. Vincent’s School chess groups, as each group visited her at different times. The advanced students additionally guessed what moves were played in a classmate’s tournament game.
Dr. Alexey Root taught the beginners how the Q, R, and B moved. Then the beginners tried this exercise from Read, Write, Checkmate: Enrich Literacy with Chess Activities.
Have pairs of students get out a board, a white queen, a black rook, and a black bishop. Each piece should be placed on its starting square. Start the white queen on d1, the black rook on h8 or a8, and the black bishop on f8 or c8. White moves first. . . . After trying this from both sides, ask students whether it was easier to play white or to play black.
