A few days ago, I shared the first article of the series on teaching our child chess. After a short break, I had the opportunity to write the second part of this series of articles. In my first article, I talked about how to decide and buy the chess set. In this article, I will talk about introducing the chessboard to the child.

Part 2: Introducing the Chessboard

We take out the chess set we bought in its box with our child. Our child will show interest in chess pieces and will start playing with them.

In the meantime, we will begin to tell him a tale:

Once upon a time, in a far away land, there was a country called the black and white country. In this country, milk stones and chocolate stones lived. Milk stones were white, chocolate stones were black. These stones were always playing games among themselves. Before starting the game, they would shake hands, wishing each other success. In these games, sometimes chocolate stones and sometimes milk stones would win. No matter which side wins, the losing side never gets upset and congratulates the winning side and shakes their hand. Also, whichever side won, they slept together in the same place.

After telling the tale, we will begin to introduce the board by laying out the chessboard:

We can start by saying this is the black and white checkered board you see, the country I told you about in the fairy tale. We will say that there are 64 squares in total on the board and 32 of these squares are white and 32 of them are black. If our child is very young, he may not be able to remember these numbers immediately. The letters a to h and numbers 1 to 8 are listed on the bottom of the chessboard. Since these letters and numbers will be of interest to the child, they are likely to ask questions about them. While explaining to the child about this subject, we can say that every square on the chessboard has a name, and that these letters and numbers are written there so that we can learn the names of these squares easily. We can also teach the names of squares such as a2 and b4 by showing their locations on the chessboard. For young children who have not yet learned to read and write, this issue can be left for later periods. If our child can read and write, the first thing to learn is to read the letter first and then the number.

After placing our child right across from us and placing the chessboard between us, we will ask the child to raise his right hand. We will then tell him to touch the lower right corner of the chessboard with his raised right hand. If the square touched by the child is white, the chessboard is correctly placed. The process of raising the hand and touching the corner is repeated by the mother or father, and the child is provided to reinforce what he has learned by obtaining confirmation from the child that it is correct.

The game starts by leaving the color selection of the chess pieces to the child. He is asked to collect all the stones of the chosen color to his side. You will also collect your own stones for yourself. Before starting the game, we will introduce the chess pieces to the child.

Yes, our child has now learned about the chessboard. In my next article, I will talk about how to introduce chess pieces to our child.

I hope you found my article useful. Thank you for reading.

Stay with love…