Newsletter #13, February 28, 2017
Post date: Mar 1, 2017 5:39:42 AM
Dear Prairie Chess Families,
Chess T-Shirts
I handed out the second order of T-Shirts on Monday. I send individual emails to those who I don’t have marked off as picking up their shirt. If you did not get your t-shirt (or an email from me), please let me know in case I inadvertently crossed your name off the list. I have a few extras (Adult M, Youth L, and Youth M) if anyone did not order a shirt and would still like one. Just let me know.
Chess Lesson: Point & Creek (5-9)
For the Creek and Point students, we continued our series of lessons on the chess opening. Two Monday’s ago, we explored the Scotch Game following through one our own players games played in the Team Tournament at Point on the 4th. Last Monday, we reviewed the Ruy Lopez, also known as the Spanish opening, which was a player request. We will continue this approach for the next couple of weeks. If any student has a request, particularly from a game they notated in a tournament, I would be happy to highlight in an upcoming lesson. Just send me an email with a copy of their notation sheet. For those students that would like to review or go deeper into these two openings, I am providing a few links to two of several good YouTube videos for each opening.
Scotch Game
Ruy Lopez
For our Elementary Students, we have spent time learning about “hanging pieces” while using our ChessKid.com accounts.
Chess Lesson: Elementary (K-4)
The link to our ChessKid lesson is:
For this lesson, there are a series of 4 short videos with an assessment at the end. Everyone completed at least one of the four lessons. I then issued a challenge to complete the remain 3 lessons by this Monday’s club meeting. I had prizes for all those who complete the remaining lesson as part of the challenge. Those who did not complete the challenge over the prior week used this Monday to do so.
For those who completed the lesson, we practice by solving chess puzzle on the “Hanging Pieces Theme.” The challenge this week is to attempt and solve the most “hanging pieces” puzzles.There will be prizes for those who attempt the most "hanging pieces" puzzles and those who get the most correct.
When logging on to their ChessKid.com accounts, students will see a message about the challenge and instruct them to:
“Click on this link: https://www.chesskid.com/puzzles/server.html?theme=12”
To get their from the main menu follow these clicks:
Learn => Puzzles => Themes => Hanging Pieces
Please let me know if you have any trouble logging in. Most kids know their username. They all start with “Prairie” such as PralrieWalrus. All passwords are either checkmate or pawn2e4.
Save the Dates:
March 11: The third Prairie Chess Series is coming up March 11th, once again at Prairie Point. You can play in this even if you have not played in the first or second. You can sign up by sending me an email and paying on site… I don’t quite have the online registration set up yet, but will soon. We have several students doing very well in club but have not attempted a tournament yet. I really like to see them give it a shot. We have a lot of kids from our trophy winning Creek student moving on to Point next year and we are really looking to see who is going step in and fill their shoes.
March 21 or 28: I am working to arrange a match with Coolidge Elementary school on either March 21 or March 28. That is a Tuesday. They will come to Prairie. Whichever date, we may move chess club that week from Monday to Tuesday. I will let you know when we have something firmed up - likely next week.
April 29-30: Registration for Ice Harbor is taking off (visit www.iceharborchess.com for complete details). Approximately ¾ of the 100 rooms in our block at the Grand Harbor Resort and Water Park have already been taken. So, if you are thinking of going, get your reservation now. We do have an overflow hotel at the nearby Holiday Inn, but the Holiday Inn does not have a water park :-(.