Starting Them Young: Checkmate in PInk

When I first found out I was going to have a daughter, I figured it would be quite the challenge to turn her in to a proper geek. My wife, mother, sister, and mother-in-law all worked to turn her in to a girly-girl, showering her with pink sparkles and stories of princesses. At 6 years old she paints her nails, litters our the "recently watched" section of Netflix with Barbie and fairy shows, and recently taught my son how to give a makeover to a giant stuffed horse.

But despite it all, it's becoming evident that my geek gene is fairly dominant in her DNA. She loves dice, has painted her own miniature, helped me make terrain, played an RPG, and is absolutely crazy about Legos. Does it get better? You'd better believe it!

After writing my post about chess, I've been playing my buddy Zach almost every day using the app Chess Time. Emma heard me talking to my wife about us playing our first face-to-face game tonight, and Emma piped in with "Hey I've heard of chess, [some girl in her Lego Friends book] plays chess! I wish I could learn to play..." It was like watching her level up in real life!

Her face lit up when I casually offered to teach her some time. Little does she know that Daddy immediately started researching how to teach a complex game to a 6 year old. When I was first introduced to chess I received a set that had each piece's moves printed on its base. If they had something like that in the dark ages of the 90s, surely an amazing teaching aid has come along since then to make my job easier.

Yeah right. I found a couple aids that received lukewarm reviews from 6th graders who have better grammar than some adults I know. A few people suggested teaching younger kids the story of chess so that they can understand what all the pieces mean. I really had no idea chess had a story! Other than that the trick is figuring out how to keep her attention long enough to teach her how to set up and move the pieces.

I realize that of everything this is probably the least geeky thing she's been interested in, but what a great way to hang out with my girl! And with the beatings I've been receiving at the hands of my friend, it might be nice to play someone who's closer to my skill level. Plus if she can slowly start learning strategy at this age and sticks with it, she's going to totally kick my butt in Warmachine in a few years.

If anyone has any tips for teaching chess to kids, I'm all ears. So far I'm planning on finding a pink/sparkly chess set and grabbing some "Chess for Kids" book from the library. Who knows, maybe I can find a way to squeeze this in to a homeschool lesson!


See you tomorrow!


Remember to follow me on Facebook! I'm doing a blog post every single day for 2013, and Facebook is a great way to stay up-to-date as well as take part in my monthly giveaways. This month you can get a model painted for free!