Newsletter #7 January 9, 2017

Post date: Jan 10, 2017 5:15:00 AM

Dear Prairie Chess Families,

We had a great day at chess club today. Everything went very smoothly getting to Creek, snacks, cafeteria play, and pick up.

Today our lesson was in the computer lab where we logged into our new ChessKid.com accounts. The Prairie Chess Club has purchased annual gold memberships for all of our students. Each student was given a Username and Password for their account. They brought these home (about the size of a post-it note). Please help your student find their account. Please take 10 minutes and log in with your child at home. Unfortunately, some of our students did not get their account update with their name. I need this to be able to follow students progress. You can do this at https://www.chesskid.com/settings/ after logging in. In the computer lab, we signed in and learned to navigate to the chess learning site and how to challenge an opponent online. ChessKid.com will be a very important tool for your child to learn, practice, and improve. We had 23 Prairie kids play in our tournament Saturday. If students are looking to improve their performance at the next tournament, they will need to spend time on ChessKid.com.

This Saturday is the Iowa Scholastic Team Championship in Des Moines at Drake University, Olmstead Center, 875 University Avenue, Des Moines, IA 50311. If you want to go, but just need a ride, please let me know and I will help with carpooling. I have room in my car! We are fortunate to have many chess tournaments at Prairie. But please don't let the comfort of "home court" deter us from traveling to Des Moines for this very important event. All K-6 students play in one tournament. Their are separate trophies for the top K-3 teams (K-3 player can also count toward K-6 teams.) All K-9 and K-12 players will play in a separate tournament with Junior High and High School Team trophies. You can register by email to me and then pay at the tournament or online at https://onlineregistration.cc/CII/2017TEAMor through the link posted at http://www.chessiniowa.org/registration. If you have questions, do not hesitate to ask by email, by phone at 319-432-1459, or Monday at Chess Club.

Please contact me with any questions.

Take care,

Jim