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.

For the intermediate and advanced, Dr. Root taught the Criteria Challenge activity from Science, Math, Checkmate: 32 Chess Activities for Inquiry and Problem Solving (2008, pp. 28-30). The intermediate and advanced groups finished two of the four challenges and will finish the other two next week.