Chess Set - Once a Pawn a Time

My family loves this game! My boys were learning chess at a school chess club. They are ages 6 and 8. I needed several home teaching products to help them along from week to week. This set is wonderful. The books are hilarious and the boys actually pick them up to read on their own. The books are really what makes this set. Overall I was very happy with this product because the books were able to help explain rather complicated concepts (like ranks and files) to very young children and they now completely get it. They are even considering entering a chess tournament. I gave it the full 5 stars because it does what it sets out to do and is very clever. -- Amazon Reviewer
When my 5 year old daughter started kindergarten, I wanted to open her up to the world of chess. The first opportunity came in the form of the chess club at school. When I checked it out, most of the kids were much older (7-8 years old and up). I was concerned that in this environment she would simply become frustrated, and learn that playing chess is about losing every game to these older kids. I felt like I would be throwing a sheep to the wolves, only to turn her off to the game for life.

I purchased two products to teach my 5 year old daughter to play: this product and "No Stress Chess". I had already taught her some basics before purchasing this product. I found that the toughest thing to teach was how the knight moves. I still started from the beginning with the tutorial books, and they made the learning process a lot more fun for my daughter. She was much more engaged and captivated to learn chess in the context of a story line, rather than purely in the context of equations. The books start out with basic set up and piece movement, and then expand to simple chess problems and rules of play. In a very short time she has become proficient in all piece movement, rules of play, and even basic principles of strategy. She is also able to see consequences of her moves beyond the immediate move. Its truly incredible at what they can pick up at such a young age. I believe laying this foundation will allow her to become a strong player when I introduce her to the chess club with older kids at school. Rather than throwing her to the wolves as a sheep, I believe this is going to be more like introducing a wolf in sheep's clothing.

The first several games we played were with No Stress Chess. That game uses a deck of cards that forces each player to move the piece show on a card that is selected from the deck. While this kept her interested in playing, it did not serve well to teach fundamentals of basic strategy and proper rules of play. It didn't allow for her to learn the difference between sound moves and unsound moves. Also, in that game there is no concept of check or checkmate, you play until the cards will allow you to move a piece that will actually take the opponent's king. While this was fine in the beginning for the limited purposes of practicing piece movement, I think it started to promote bad habits.

After completing the lessons in both books, we now play in three ways: 1. setting up chess "problems" where I will set up a scenario on the board ("puzzles") and work through the analysis with her to arrive at the best solution. The dry erase chess board is very useful in working these problems out; 2. setting up an end game situation on the board (like two rooks and a king against a king) and have her try to checkmate me; and 3. Full games, where I allow her to play and I play my best moves, but when I get to the point of a mathematically impossible win, I will turn the board around and allow her to finish me off.

I can't say how amazed I am at the chess logic that can be taught from such an early age. The books were very valuable in teaching, and I believe that next year she will be holding her own against the older kids at her school's chess club. This product was very valuable in that teaching. -- Amazon Reviewer