Chess is an ancient but eternally young game, the charm of which can win the hearts of both a deep old man and a child. Chess is extremely useful for a preschooler, because it develops thinking, attention, spatial imagination and a number of other qualities that will be useful to him more than once in life. However, a small child cannot always understand that it is necessary to play according to the rules, and that each piece can only move in a certain way, and not in the way the player wants.
Who is on the field?
Buy a big beautiful chess set. The smaller the child, the larger the figures should be. The younger preschooler simply won't accept pocket chess. In addition, they can be swallowed or stuffed into the nose or ear. It is better to choose a set in which the board and figures are painted in classic black and white colors. It is very difficult for a preschooler to understand why a red or brown cell is called black and a yellow one is called white. Lay out and examine the board. Point out to your student that the black and white squares alternate in both the length and the width of the board. You can do the counting at the same time. A young chess player must understand that in each row of the field there are 8 cells, 4 black and 4 white.
Consider the shapes
The preschooler has a well-developed imagination. He can easily imagine that a strange-looking figure is the king, who is the most important in the army, everyone must protect him. The set also contains pawns, rooks, bishops, knights and a queen. Tell them that the pawns are soldiers, so they are all the same. They are very bold and stand in the front row. The child has probably already seen horses and elephants in the pictures. Sometimes it can be difficult to explain what a rook is. Tell us that this is a very large ship. It can be explained that the rook is also sometimes called the tour, that is, the tower. The child may not understand why this tower is moving, but it is not difficult to find an explanation. For example, it might be a very large tank. Not all children understand what a queen is. We can say that this is the first assistant to the king, minister of war.
Arrange the shapes
Tell your child that in the army, each figure should know its place. The king, queen, bishops, knights and rooks stand in the outer ranks, and the order is determined by the rules. On the outermost squares - rooks, on the second from the edge - knights, then bishops follow, and the position in the center is always occupied by the king and queen. In the second row from the edge, there are soldiers-pawns, they cover the rest.
Who walks how
Show how the pawns move. They move one square forward and only at the beginning of the game can they step through the square. While the pawns are in a straight line, no piece except the knight can move. The horse can jump, he can jump over the line, while walking with the letter "G" - three cells forward, backward or sideways, one to the side. Show that the rook can only move in a straight line, and the bishop can only move diagonally, and one of the bishops must always be on a white square, and the other on a black one. Tell that the king can move in any direction, but only one square, but the queen can move as a pawn, and as a king, and as a bishop, and as a rook.
Purpose of the game
Explain that the game of chess is a battle. Its goal is to remove the opponent's pieces from the board and make sure that the king is under attack and, moreover, surrounded. Show how the opponent's pieces are knocked down. For example, a pawn strikes obliquely and takes the place of a removed piece, a bishop can capture a piece or pawn located diagonally from it, etc. The king cannot be knocked down, if he is threatened, this is called "check", and if a check is declared and the king has nowhere to go, he was mated, and the one whose king got into such an unpleasant position lost. During the first play, tell your child how to walk. Two or three sessions will be enough. After the child has mastered the rules a little, start solving simple chess problems.
