For week two, I again had 11 students, with the same proportion of 9 boys and 2 girls. But one of the boys and one of the girls were new as compared to last week.

Objectives: Students will learn how to make a chess diagram and how to fill out a record for a ladder game. Students will play Simon Says with chess instructions. Students will play a ladder game.

Materials needed: Demonstration board, chalkboard, chess sets and boards (one for every two students), chess diagrams, pencils, 3x5 index cards, notebook paper. Outdoor area.

Procedure: I set up the demonstration board with all of the chessmen on it in the starting position. Each student had a pencil and a blank chess diagram. I asked

students the abbreviations for the chessmen, which they either knew from past experience or figured out. I wrote those on the chalkboard and students filled in their diagrams with the starting position of a chess game. Then I went over how to fill out an index card for the ladder game, with students following along on the index cards I passed out to them. Those instructions (for the index cards and for the ladder game in general) are in Read, Write, Checkmate: Enrich Literacy with Chess Activities. We then went to the cafeteria for snack. Then, since the students had a lot of energy, we went outside. A trainer last week said in his speech that he wanted to teach chess kinesthetically. I referred to his remark when introducing Simon Says. We played that game outdoors, with most instructions relating to chess (for example, Simon Says move like a rook towards me). Then we returned to the classroom to play the ladder games. Those that knew how had to notate on notebook paper.Evaluation: The pace of the class was very good. It seemed like the students spent enough time on each part to understand and benefit from it, but not long enough to get bored. All of the ladder games finished by the end of class. Those that finished early conducted post mortems in the hallway or played a second game for fun. Since I had an odd number for the ladder game, I recruited the Number Sense UIL coach (who had also visited us last week) to play chess as one student's opponent.

Please Login or Register to leave a comment.

Comments CComment

Member Area

Calendar

Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30

Chess Quotes