Plant the Seeds: Growing Chess Culture At Your School

Hello Coaches and Parents,

The success of your school chess programs involves more than meeting just once a week at chess club. Here are some tips to build a chess culture at your school!

• Chess Breakfast - This is a great team activity, especially on the Friday before a weekend scholastic chess tournament. The team can meet, play chess, enjoy some bagels and juice, and bond before playing as a team that weekend. Parents that work enjoy that they can bring their child to school a little early before they leave for their job.

 

• Morning Announcements - If your students played a weekend tournament, give a list of the participants to mention on the morning announcements. Be sure to announce any special awards or accomplishments that your students earned!

 

• Trophy Case - Talk to the school principal about dedicating some space at the school to showcase a nice picture of the chess team and any medals or trophies that they have earned! This will help to create a nice visual for the entire school, and generate interest for the chess club.

• Chesskid Fast-Chess Night - A great way to make sure the team is practicing between chess club meets is to have a ChessKid fast-chess night! Set a day and time that the students know to login and play chess. An extra incentive is for coaches to login to play the first student that they see in the arena. Brave coaches can have a pizza party for the team if any of the students manage to beat the coach!