Stepping Stones workbooks, part of the famous Dutch Chess Steps program, is intended for ages 4-9. . The two Stepping Stones workbooks are actually the same material contained in Step 1 of the program but reformatted for the much younger target audience.
At this age, the children do not need their own workbooks but you should have them to have ample examples to demonstrate to the class.
At that age, attention spans are short. Therefore, dividing a one hour span of time between lecture and exercise should favor less lecture and more exercise, maybe 20 min lecture + 40 min exercise.
The Step 1 manual is filled with ‘mini-games’ that are appropriate for each lesson.
You can order the materials at chess-steps.com or stappenmethode.nl/en/
Hello,
so I am 17 years old female chess player from Europe. Recently I got an opportunity to train few kids chess. I was not about to try it but after I quit my part-time job and got a lot of extra time, I thought it'd be a good experience. But I am absolutely youngest child in my whole family, I don't have experiences with kids AT ALL! These kids are the age of 4 to 7 years.
The kids can after, I guess, 4 lessons move with their rooks and bishops, some of them with the queen. But in this age they forget these things easily so it's not the right time to move on yet. I struggle to have a lesson with them for a whole hour. I don't know what activities should I do with them. I tried few minigames such as: 2 bishops vs 2 rooks (the first one to capture a piece wins), rook vs rook (Their rook had the ability of cutting opponents rook from the rest of the chessboard. The first one that managed to trap his opponent's rook in the corner wins.).
But it's hard to keep their concentration for a whole hour and I don't want to bore them. I don't know what should I do when they are bored already. I really love kids and it breaks my heart to hear they are bored, I'd love them to fall in love with chess. Could you give me some advices or tips on which chess books should I search for? Online would be the best, since I am teaching them for no money...
In the case you have experience with teaching really young kids, I'd be very happy if you contacted me.