Teach your baby how to play chess

[MamaOfWill]

I'm interested in teaching my one year old boy how to play chess.  Does anyone have tips for me on how to tackle this.  I'm making video's of my husband and I playing very fast, fun, short chess games with a nice big chess set.  These short games sofar include popular chess openings like queens gambit.  I plan on playing them to my baby for many days (maybe once a day for 30 days each, any opinions on that?)

So far I have:
*  A dedicated mom and cute 1 year old (almost, actually turning 1 on Wednesday)
*  3 Home made chess videos (production is slow)
*  A nice child friendly chess set, pieces sized 15cm to 20cm

I've started teaching the names of the pieces, how they move, and their starting positions, but he doesn't know them yet.

[Skylark]

What an awesome idea!

Sorry I do not have any advise    but will be very interested to follow your progress and see what other parents with experience in chess will have to say! In my personal opinion chess can really contribute towards child's early development, and if they can learn how to read and do complex math as babies, then why not chess!

I personally think it is so worth it and would love to teach it to my little ones, but I don' t play chess myself 

Will be so neat if you would share your videos with us all!!

Congatulations, you are doing an awesome job!

[TeachingMyToddlers]

Yes, I LOVE this! How innovative and cool. I think DadDude plays chess, maybe he has some ideas for you! Can't wait to hear how it goes. 

[DadDude]

I tried to teach H. using No Stress Chess from around age 3.  I taught him piece names and how they moved before that.  Chess is a very complicated game--you can teach pieces and how most of them move (it took him a long time to figure out knight moves), but a lot of the skills that make it possible for a 7-year-old to figure out the game are way, way beyond baby level.  Still, what you're doing isn't a waste of time!  I'd love to see your videos!

[TeachingMyToddlers]

You know, you can even throw in some overhead shots of chess masters on youtube and incorporate them into the video. Even if you play it in the background while your LO plays, they will still benefit and absorb.

[aangeles]

When Ella was around 2, we thought of making an LR file to teach her the names of the chess pieces, but never got around to doing it. When she turned 3 last July, she discovered the Dinosaur Chess app that I had downloaded on her Ipad (thanks to DadDude's recommendations). She learned the names of the pieces and how they moved after a week of playing that app incessantly. Then we gave her No Stress Chess for Christmas and she's been playing chess with us almost everyday since. We made up our own rules for No Stress Chess - we would just play it like a regular chess game, then when she gets stuck and does not know what move to make next, she can draw a card from the pile and do what the card says. As DadDude said, she does not know how to strategize and plan her moves yet like a 7-year-old would, but, boy does she love to play chess! She gets especially excited when her pawn gets to turn into a queen! 

Would love to see your videos, too! 

[Humbler9]

Your idea is super.  I wanted to teach my 11 month old twins how to play chess as well.  I started off great but have fallen behind as of late.

Here is what I did.
1.  I purchased a dvd called "Learning chess the easy way-  Chess for absolute beginners" by Susan Polgar.
2.  I purchased a chess board (mat) that actually hangs on the wall.  Each square has a plastic sheath that allows you to put a piece in it.
3.  I purchased 3 chess mats with wooden pieces that are slightly larger than average.

Every day, I would move a piece for each color.  White in the morning, black in the evening.  I had it hanging by the twins changing station.  It worked very good for quite some time.  Bad thing is...  They don't use the changing station anymore, so I need to figure out how to improvise.  I would show them the board several times a day.  When the game was just starting, I would always tell them.  "At the beginning of the game, always attack the middle"  Moving a piece into the middle is considered an attack because it also develops your position.

I tried to annotate games from past chess legends.  ie:  Garry Kasparov, Alexander Alekhine just to name a couple.  Finding annotated games can be challenging.

You can have several chess games going on at once so that your child can unknowingly analyze the position of each game without even knowing it.
You can also set up 1 or 2 move mate scenarios and talk your child through them.
You can buy Chess programs such as: "Chessmaster 9000" or whatever the latest one is.  Joshua Waitzkins was a chess prodigy and he gives advise and also chess lessons in the game.  He is awesome.
There are many Chess magazines that you can start collecting so you can let them play with them later.  "Chess" and "Chess Life" are two such titles.
The video by Susan Polgar is good, but it's a bit corny in my opinion "Hi my little Chessheads".  It's designed more for 5-8 year old children I would guess.  Overall, it's an o.k. video.

Remember...  There are different elements to chess--  The beginning, the Middle game, and the End Game.  Chess openings are important for developing the position (ie: attack the middle), Gambits are great for giving up a piece in order to advance your position.  You can tell your child that the middle game is designed to strengthen your attack to certain areas of the board (toward the king, weak files, passed pawns, etc...)  The end game is good for showing how to checkmate the opponents king, avoid stalemate, etc..

The possibilities are endless.  I have always loved chess, It really helps develop strategies and sportsmanship.  I hope some of my ideas will help you.  Good luck and enjoy.

John

Edit:  Goto Youtube and do a search for Jrobichess.  He has some great videos that might interest you.  You can also make some Green arrows that can indicate that the goal is to develop the center and Red lines to show pieces are attacking a certain piece or row/file.

[iwini]

Thanks a lot.I have this idea and purchased a chess board for my Lil,but I even don't know how to play ,so I started learning from my system. thanks for the informations and DadDude recommendation.now I can start with my 27 month Lil.
Thanks Humbler9,your advise must work .
Chess is a mind game,is there any benefit related to mental stimulation?
If any body researched  about it,please share.

[MamaOfWill]

Thanks for all the support and advice, you guys are great!  Especially John, you've got some good ideas.  I didn't even know about the youtube video's, thanks for that tip too, I think I'll use it later on, there are tons. 

My personal video's that my hubby and I are doing, we're aiming for less distractions, more clarity and really short vids, like shorter than a minute, and of course they feature my baby's all time hero, Dad!  I'll not be sharing these because my husband doesn't feel comfortable.

I want to create Little Reader files for chess (once I figure it out and buy the app) and those I'll definitely share.  (Now here's another question, how do I get premium status on a Little Reader file?)

[LDSMom]

There's been a lot of questions surrounding chess, but what about Checkers or Stratego? I just taught my 4 yr old checkers and we've really enjoyed playing together. Of course we did get the Mario Brothers version of the checkers game so that makes it even more fun We also pulled out Stratego the other day and started playing. We had a lot of fun! When two pieces battle, he knows who wins because he can tell if 5 is greater than 4, etc. Kind of a fun strategic-type game. I'm not really sure my son would understand Chess if I started teaching him at this point, but I'm sure he would in another year or so after he's caught on to the idea of "strategy" through these other games.  I guess you never know though, he certainly has surprised me by being able to catch on so quickly to checkers. I just thought I'd share some ideas for others like me who may be a little intimidated by teaching Chess, but want a good way to start teaching similar ideas.

http://www.amazon.com/Board-Games-20043410-Stratego-Anniversary/dp/B004OH2AI0/ref=sr_1_3?s=toys-and-games&ie=UTF8&qid=1326257874&sr=1-3

http://www.amazon.com/Super-Mario-Checkers-Tic-Combo/dp/B004Z6OJVQ/ref=sr_1_1?s=toys-and-games&ie=UTF8&qid=1326257959&sr=1-1

[MamaOfWill]

Hi LDSMom,

It's true, chess is not the only of it's kind, just a personal favourite of mine, I think if I can manage I'll also teach other games later on. 

I feel that I want to make use of my babies maraculous ability to learn things.  If you think about it, many babies across the globe learn to read by being read to only, no pointing to words, no phonics, no flash cards, no little reader.  Many babies learn many "hard to grasp" things easily, if they get exposure to that particular topic.  I think my question is more along the lines of, how can I give my baby exposure to chess in a way that will help him learn how to play, unconsiously, with little explanation from my side, only lots and lots of the right kind of exposure.

Thanks for the links

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