I am teaching my children (5 and 7) to play chess, and we are pretty much at the which piece can move where phase. However while they do enjoy the game, they don't really have an attention span that can play a full game.
What I would like is some way to make changes to the game that will cut game time down so that my kids can enjoy the game, as quality time with Dad and hopefully learn something.
A few ideas:
Michael Goeller's Pawn Battle which introduces a checkers-like game (that still follows the rules of chess) that wonderfully folds in key pawn concepts like break moves, sacrificing to clear a line and even zugzwang. This exercise also helps kids learn to appreciate calculating outcomes beyond just "Hope Chess"-ing it out.
Some of the handouts at ProfessorChess.com contain exercises and drills that are fun and instructive.
Basic won endgames : These can be fun, simple positions which very direct goals and often gets done within minutes as they start to figure out how to solve them. Start up with KQ vs K setups and move up the ladder of complexity to KR vs K and even KP vs K. These fundamental skills stay with them as they progress with their chess.
ALL MINI-GAMES COURTESY OF STUDYING CHESS MADE EASY BY ANDREW SOLTIS
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"Pawn Wars" is a great way to play and teach kids about chess, each player starts with only pawns on their starting squares and the winner is the first one to reach the eighth rank, this teaches kids about pawn play and promotion. Then later you can bring in the kings, then they will rarely forget the power of the king in the endgame.
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This one is called Forbidden City, this is probably the best way to learn how to play with the Knights, Whites goal is to get to h8 and return to a1, blacks goal is to get to a1 and return to h8. Neither Knight can land on a square where they can be eaten by a pawn, or a square which contains a pawn and they can never enter the square the pawns have formed, thus the name, Forbidden City. Of course whoever moves first should win but it is not so easy for beginners.
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This is called Rook vs Pawns, White wins if one of the pawns queens and Black wins if he/she can eat all of White's pawns, this can help teach kids the power of passed pawns and the lateral attacks of the Rook.
One fun game is Knight's tour. You will need 64 pieces for that (you can play it without the pieces, but it's more fun with the pieces), including the knight. The objective is to capture all the pieces with the knight. The knight can start on any square, but one of the central squares is preferred. It would be a fun game for your kids, while at the same time improving their ability to calculate ahead.
A shorter version of knight's tour would be to play it on one half of the board, with 32 pieces.
By the way, I learned chess when I was 4 or below. Never underestimate kids!
When I was studying chess my teacher started from explaining opposition concept. After that pawns were added, and rooks, bishops, queen and knights. Just start from small number of pieces and invent new ones when interest to the games will start dawning.
Perhaps instead of playing full games with them you setup positions where some/most of the pieces are off of the board? You could get board positions from tactic training books or chess puzzle books. If you did this, you could give them one specific objective - "How fast can you capture my bishop?" Or "Try to beat me in two moves."
This would create shorter interactions with chess that had discernible and able-to-be-quickly-achieved goals (to help with the attention span). Also, they would still be playing "real" chess.
Hope this helps. Good luck!
I really like "Let's catch the lion" (dobutsu shogi) for young kids, and I've built a Duplo version of the game to play with my almost 5-year old daughter. Winning seems to be a big motivator so she likes it best when I play with only my lion and remove my other pieces from the game (not in hand). So far I have also been playing without chick to chicken promotion. For older kids there is goro goro dobutsu shogi.
Blank Chess is a great introduction to chess pieces and movement. Check out the rules at http://www.blankchess.com.
Chess minigames are ideal for teaching children. One challenge is that most chess software doesn't support playing positions with no kings or the other specific rules that many chess minigames include.
Worth checking out Acorn Chess which has extensive support for chess minigames and even creating custom minigames.
Disclaimer: I developed Acorn Chess as I couldn't find anything that met my needs.
Maybe cut the board down to half (in width) so there's 1 rook, 1 bishop, 1 queen, 1 king, and 4 pawns each?
