Why Kids Should Learn to Play Chess in School

Spring has brought us a lot of rainy days lately, which keeps us inside a lot. Instead of giving in to the constant requests for t.v. and video games, we have been trying to pull out the chess board more and more. Both of my older sons learned to play Chess in first frade, but my youngest who is only just four is interested enough that he knows the names of the pieces and how they move. To me, Chess is more than a great rainy day activity. It is also a beneficial part of any home school or classroom setting.

 Students who play chess can expand their knowledge in many ways, such as:

- Critical Thinking Skills: Chess is essentially a thinking game. You have to remember the many ways that different pieces to create a strategy that will not be outdone by your opponent. All of this builds critical thinking skills, which are vitally important in all types of math problems.

- Strategy building a.k.a “There are Multiple Ways to Solve a Problem”: Developing a strategy to win a game is the same mental skill as developing a strategy to solve a math problem. When playing Chess, you often have to change strategies mid-game in response to the moves of your opponent.

- Vocabulary: From the names of the pieces to the word “check”, there is are history and language lessons to be taught through the vocabulary of Chess. Additionally, these words have made it  into our every day language. For example, “Treating someone as a pawn.”

- Reading about Chess: There are tons and tons of books about Chess, books where you can learn how to play or increase the number of strategies you have. My boys have Chess for Kids and love reading about new strategies that might help them beat their father in Chess. This could also be a great opportunity for a lesson into the beginning of internet research as there are many online sources to learn about chess as well.

 

- Learn about the History of the Game: Chess is a very old game, dating back to Ancient India. Learning about the history of a game they enjoy can help expose them to the concepts of the spread of ideas between civilizations, the changing and tweaking of ideas over time due to new political and religious environments and even government censorship as Chess was banned in France in 1254 through an anti-gambling law. Students could even do Biography Projects on famous Chess masters.

- Character Education: Chess is a hard game and someone always loses. Kids need to learn to be good winners and good losers in life. My middle son has a hard time when he loses a game. However in Chess he is always learning new moves and so his goal now is not to beat his brother, but to learn something new each time he plays.

- Use Simulation Games: There are lots of ways to play Chess against the computer. This means that students don’t even need a partner and it gives them a chance to learn new moves. When we play Chess, we talk about observation. Observing what our opponent is doing can be more important to winning than knowing our own next move. Also, it is a way to learn new strategies that you can use in future games.

- Building Global Citizenship: Chess has essentially the same rules worldwide nowadays (this was not always true!) and with the advancement of the internet, children can play with other kids around the world. I have seen students who do not speak the same language sit down to a game of chess and play happily together for hours. My boys use the website Chess Kid to play chess with kids all around the world.

In a classroom, integrating Chess can be as simple as having boards available for indoor recess, math centers, or other downtime. Or it can be an integral part of your day using these strategies:

- Teach all of the kids the rules at the beginning of the year. Split the class into two teams. Set up a game board in the front of the room. When a student is caught being good, they get to choose a move for their team. The winning team gets a special prize.

- Play against another class. Send e-mails or letters between the two classes playing a long distance game. This would be a great addition to a penpal or e-pal program.

- Have chess boards available each morning as morning work or at the beginning of math class as an activator. Teach kids how to track their moves so that boards can be put away quickly and games can continue from one class to the next.

Have you ever thought about playing Chess in your classroom?

Puzzles, Puzzles, Puzzles

Puzzles help students to build critical thinking skills, problem solving abilities and logical, step by step thinking.  All of these thinking processes are the same thinking processes that are necessary for students to think out a math problem, make connections between things they read, and understand scientific processes.  So, why aren’t all of our students doing puzzles in class every day?  Mainly because puzzles are seen as an “extra” that we play with when we have some extra time.  With everything teachers have to have in their lesson plans, puzzles often feel like something we don’t have time for.  So, how do we find the time for puzzles?

1.) Use puzzles to teach or practice content.  Self correcting puzzles can help students use puzzles each day.  In my teachers pay teachers store, you can find self correcting puzzles for word families and for a variety of math topics.  If there is a topic you’d like a puzzle for that I don’t already have in more store, you can download my Self Correcting Puzzle Template and create puzzles for any topic you need.  These puzzles make great centers and small group activities and encourage all of those thinking skills that puzzles initiate.

   

2.) Model how to solve puzzles while modeling how to solve math word problems.  Tiling puzzles are often extremely challenging for students when they are first introduced.  Because of this, I recommend working through the first puzzle with students in a modeled “think aloud” process.  When modeling puzzles like these, take the time to highlight for students how similar these same thinking processes can be used to solve a word problem.

  

3.)  Use puzzles to practice geography.  Include map puzzles into your Maps and Globes unit.  Let students take the time to put together those continents or the states of the US and they will have a much more concrete understanding of how those locations relate to each other. 

 4.)  Let students have 5 minutes each day to work on puzzles as an activator.  Set up four or five regular jigsaw puzzles in empty pizza boxes.  Small dollar store puzzles work best as they tend to be very small when complete – and they’re cheap!  Assign students to a puzzle by simply writing their names on the top of the pizza box (this is a great time to build in differentiation by leveling the pizza boxes with puzzles of different difficulties and grouping your students accordingly).  At the beginning of your math block, set a timer for five minutes and let the students get their pizza box and work on their puzzle until the timer runs out, in an exercise to warm up their brains and get them ready for critical thinking.  When a group completes a puzzle, hand out a simple award (I like stickers.) and replace the puzzle with a new one.

 5.)  Assign puzzles for homework.  Students and parents alike complain about homework, but who is going to complain about working on a puzzle?  Send home tiling puzzles once students have had some exposure to these types of puzzles or have students work on puzzles using a website like Jigzone.com.

What interesting ways do you have to incorporate puzzles into your classroom?

Cranium in the Classroom

 

Recently, my family found the game Cranium at a thrift store and decided to grab it, since we didn’t already own it.  Wow, what a great game!  If you’ve never played Cranium, it is the epitome of multiple intelligences in a game!  Rather than just having players answer logic based questions, the questions are split into different categories.  With the Creative Cat cards, you have to draw or sculpt something (sometimes with your eyes closed) in order to get your teammates to guess a clue.  With the Data Head cards, you have factoid, true and false and multiple choice questions about a variety of topics.  With the Word Worm cards, you have to unscramble words, fill in missing letters, spell difficult words and determine the meaning of vocabulary words.  Finally, with the Star Performer cards, you act out famous or commonplace characters or hum out famous songs. 

When my boys and I started playing, I realized how awesome this could be in the classroom!  There are so many options – standard play, personalized versions, team challenges, the works.  Here are the just a few possibilities:

 

1.)  For older students (5th grade and up), standard play is a definite option and perfectly possible for a classroom setting, as you play on teams, and could easily split your class into 4 teams and play as a getting to know you or team building activity, or as an end of the day reward for good behavior.

 

2.)  Give your students multiple intelligence surveys and split them into groups based on their results.  Let these groups become your teams and have students play only the questions that match their intelligence. 

 

3.)  Split into your multiple intelligence teams, have students create their own questions for their intelligence.  Then, have the entire class play with the student created questions.

 

4.)  Choose a topic you have been studying and have students create a Cranium that is focused completely around the topic.  Students could work within their intelligence or not – depending on your class makeup.

 

5.)  Use Cranium questions as brain breaks and part of a management system.  Pull a random card during a transition.  The team that gets it right scores a point.  Keep track of the points and reward the winning team at the end of each week.

 

How can you use Cranium in your classroom?