Our Homeschooling Journey: Chess Lessons

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Saturday night is movie night date night. Usually, we would settle for any action, mystery, documentary (like The Social Dilemma), or comedy. Pretty much just any movie in those genres that is available on Netflix. For the last few weeks, we've been watching Queen's Gambit. I kinda regret inviting him to watch the series because now, I am obliged to wait for him to watch with me. I usually binge watch Netflix series like these.

We only watch during the weekends because my husband values proper sleep. During weekdays, he's been playing chess on his phone. Naturally, the little kiddo got curious. And we both know that when the kiddo has a WH question, those will need to be answered.

Enter the Chessboard

And so, he pulled out our old chessboard, collecting dust under the bed, abandoned and ignored for years. It was gifted to us on our wedding day since we both play chess before. He's better at me though because he's been on tournaments. As for me, I just like the sound of the chess pieces clashing against each other especially when savoring that sweet sweet victorious feeling when I'm taking out an important piece from my opponent.

My father would have gutted me alive if he heard me talk about chess that way. It was one of his passions during his youth. I used to use chess as an excuse to stay up late. I used to tell him I'm studying our last game and that I'll sleep in a few minutes. None of those two statements were true. If my husband had met my father during his prime, he wouldn't stand a chance. Or maybe he would but our love story would have been a little different.

Familiarization/Introduction

So there I was just watching my daughter and my husband set up the board, both excited, not sure though if they're excited about the same thing. Once my husband has set up the pieces in their places, he told my daughter, "I'll play white, you'll play black." To which my daughter replied, "Where's the white?" And so there he was again, so clueless that he's about to witness our daughter's wit, explaining about the white and black chess pieces and that white moves first, yadda yadda yadda. My daughter just said "These are not white, they're brown. They should be called BROWN."

I just knew something like this would come up so I managed to stifle my laughter. The husband though, was a bit speechless for a few moments, unsure if he's gonna laugh or proceed to explain why the color doesn't match the pieces.

She learned about each piece, what they're for, how they move, and where they're placed. All just a general introduction, nothing too serious at all. That was Day 1.

Position/Placement

On the second day, I was surprised because the first thing my daughter told me as soon as she woke up was that she wanted to play chest. In my sleepy voice, all I could manage to say was CHESS (to correct her pronunciation) and ALRIGHT (hoping she would give me a few more seconds to go back to lalaland).

Well, I wanted a child-led learning process. Child-led learning it is! Her father is on his computer, working so I had to substitute the chess lessons that morning. I let her set up the pieces. And to my surprise, once again, she was able to set up the pieces correctly. Well, except for one bishop and one knight which she said she wanted to be in front of the babies (the pawns) because they're smaller than all the other pawns. How cute is that?

I am really amazed at how she learned all these things (plus the compassion for the smaller pawns) in just 2 days. I myself still get confused about where I should place the queen and the king. Til now.

Movements

On Day 3, we focused on the movements. She somehow has an idea of how each piece moves from all the game we had from the previous days. Those are not serious games though. We always let her win. I was against this at first. My father never showed mercy to me when he played chess with me before. My husband's rationale though was that he did not want to discourage the little kid from playing. He knows how competitive our little one could get and he sees how she gets upset when she loses in kiddie games.

There was actually a science about this. Just recently, we discovered another educational series on Netflix: Brainchild. It is packed with a lot of trivia, scientific experiments that are fun to do and participate in, and as it turns out, so easy to understand and remember - even for a 4-year-old. Their episode about Motivation (Season 1, Episode 7) explained how the feeling of winning releases more dopamine giving you a happy feeling, increasing your motivation.

This actually explained to me why I needed to always acknowledge when the kids I'm teaching were able to read the words or letters correctly, or if they were able to answer even the simplest math problems right. They feel more motivated when they see they are doing great.

Now we are just randomly playing chess at home. Our old boring board game is now always near where we can easily get it. Because as of right now, this is one of her toys along with the building blocks, paint and paintbrush, markers, crayons, and colored chalks. We haven't finished the Queen's Gambit yet but I"m glad we stumbled upon it because now, we might have an Elizabeth Harmon in the making - minus the drunkenness and the drug dependence, of course. That's a big no-no.


@romeskie is a full-time stay at home mom juggling homeschooling, crocheting, and homemaking. A Business Administration graduate with a major in Marketing who ended up in the contact center industry, on the frontlines, climbing her way up to Workforce Management where she found her passion in real-time analysis and management. A once self-proclaimed careerwoman who soon realized homemaking was her real calling. Her passion varies from reading, writing, photography, and most of all, crocheting.

Connect with her through her Facebook Page: The Leftie Crocheter and on Instagram. Feel free to subscribe to her Youtube Channel: The Leftie Crocheter


Big thanks to @bearone for my Hive PH badge.



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20 comments
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Keep her playing the game and she can use that skill to have a sports scholarship or extra curricular activities at school.

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Sana ma enjoy nya hanggang pagtanda niya. She's be curious about a lit of things, some stick with her, some don't. Hopefully chess becomes her favorite out of all her hobbies.

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Monopoly. Make her love it. Move by it. Live with it.

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Nice! 😍 She'd soon be your fierce opponent.

All my kids now know how to play chess while I don't (please don't judge! Haha) so they have to wait til their dad is home for some serious game.

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I don't really play on a tournament level. I hope she turns out better than me or my husband. I may need to download chess apps for her soon.

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Ung bunso ko though influenced by his siblings learned through online chess game. Kasi dun may dots kung anong moves allowed for a piece. Pero ngayon he enjoys playing with his dad.

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Great! And that's how I found it! :-) Cheers! !invest_vote

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I love how your daughter is beginning the chess game at an early stage. It reminds me so much of me. infact, I grew up to become addicted to the game until I had less time to play it due to responsibilities that life brings.

Your posts gives me the motivation to share my chess life story. It isn't much though but should be worth sharing.

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Cool! There is a chess community, I think they're holding tournaments too.

My father also taught me how to play chess but the game did not really grow on me. I hope my daughter learns to love chess more than I did.

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Yeah.. Just give brewing up the love she has for it.. It would take her places when she has a great mind for it.

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Ah Chess, what a game! I'm not a huge fan of it but I used to enjoy playing it when I was younger. It is indeed very technically challenging and complicated. I'm glad that your daughter is really taking to it! It provides good thinking and analytical skills plus it's always nice to have something to play that isn't attached to some kind of computer screen!

Every now and then you have to beat the kids though, I think :D they should know what it's like to lose, I think!

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