Chess Club

Elementary School Chess Club

Created by: Sam Tannous (email: sam dot tannous at gmail dot com)
Homework: The weekly homework assignment is to play (and record in short algebraic notation) at least one game of chess at home and turn this in the following Monday. Students should also be working through the basic skills checklist (a link to this is located below). When they've mastered a skill, they need to demonstrate it to a chess coach and have it checked off.
Club Handouts (all the sources for these handouts were created with LaTeX and are available upon request): Newsletter Volume 1, Number 1 (Postscript format) (PDF format); Basic Chess Rules (HTML format) (Postscript format) (PDF format); Reading and Writing Chess (HTML format) (Postscript format) (PDF format); Basic Skills Checklist (HTML format) (Postscript format) (PDF format); Chess Game Record Form (HTML format) (Postscript format) (Two game page Postscript format) (PDF format)
For Parents and Educators: Why Offer Chess in Schools? Chessmaster Jerry Meyers' article on the benefits of chess.; The Use and Impact of Chess Dr. Robert C. Ferguson's summary of research conducted on Scholastic Chess.
Chess Playing Software: If you are interested in playing chess against a computer (or simply want to use a computer as your chessboard), I highly recommend WinBoard (for Windows users) and XBoard (for UNIX users). Both are free and and available from Tim Mann's Chess Pages. If you need a strong playing program to play against or for analysis, I recommend you try Bob Hyatt's Crafty. It's also free and works well with WinBoard and XBoard. You can get Winboard bundled together with Crafty in this one Windows zip file. Simply create a new directory and unzip the this file in it. Then create a shortcut on your windows desktop (right mouse click and point to New and then Shortcut). To use Crafty, make sure the Target looks like this:
C:\chess\winboard.exe -cp -fcp "wcrafty-18.15.exe winboard" -fd "C:\chess"
Chess Tips and Links (Note: these web links take you off of this web page.): Chess on Stamps; Chess Graphics; Online Chess Problem Books; British Chess Problem Society; British Chess Variants Society; Maurice Ashley's Website; Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) about Chess; Chess Dominion; US Chess Beginner's Page; US Chess' Basic Rules Page; Jon Edwards' Chess is Fun; US Chess Federation Homepage; The Week in Chess; Free Internet Chess Server (Play Online with others)