In today’s educational environment, parents can’t count on the school system to provide all the educational opportunities their child needs. Too much time is spent dealing with classroom discipline, political correctness, and other non-educational distractions.

This problem is magnified when we look at the higher thought processes. While the schools may do an adequate job of teaching academic basics, sports, and even electives; they’ve lost the ability to teach analytical thinking, reasoning and problem solving. Parents who want their children to succeed in life, especially those whose plans include higher education, need to take over these educational areas, insuring that their children have the ability to reason and analyze on their own.

Sitting your children down with another textbook to study isn’t the answer either. Children who are given too much to study tend to rebel and stop absorbing anything. However, there are a large number of options open to concerned parents.

Educational toys and games are some of the greatest teaching tools available; especially in the areas of teaching reasoning and analytical ability. Of all the games created, chess is one of the best intellectual stimulants on the market.

What, chess games for kids? Is it possible to teach kids how to play chess?

You bet it is; kids can actually learn to play chess at a relatively young age. Since the rules of chess are actually rather simple, and logical; they are easily absorbed by children. It is the strategy of the game and the number of possible moves available to the player that make chess such an intellectual game.

In addition to what we can call the standard chess game, there are a number of simplified chess games for kids that have been developed over the years. Many of these can be found online, but are just as easily played over a chess board:

• Knights Tour is a game using only the rook. In this game, which is great for practicing the use of the rook, the player tries to see how many moves they can make over the board, without landing on the same square twice.
• Do a Chess Piece Quiz where you ask the child to show how many different moves they can make with a particular piece.
• There are also a number of web sites online that have interactive puzzles and pre-set scenarios for children to increase their chess ability.

Remember, chess games for kids need to be fun, in order to keep your child’s attention and interest. Don’t try and make them feel like it is a chore, educational activity, or something that they can’t master. Kids can play chess and enjoy it too.

{ 0 comments }