Rugel Elementary Chess

This is a script for teaching life skills to  3rd and 4th graders using three 1 hour lessons spaced a week apart. We taught 207 children in ten groups of twenty, for a total of 30 classroom sessions, when developing this script.


The 1st session is Life-Sized Chess. The children start by weaving a chess board from 2 ft. wide rolls of construction paper. We used red and yellow.  The children then group on different corners of the board to become experts in how their assigned pieces move. Toward the end of the class they report back, teaching and demonstrating to the rest of the class how their pieces move. At the end of the class they play a short scripted game of Chess.


The 2nd lesson maps Chess skills into life skills. A 'prescription for frustration' is developed. Example antidotes for frustration are explored.


The 3rd lesson maps Chess characters into actual people. This helps develop a prescription for 'frustration with people.' Example antidotes for frustration with people are explored.


This activity teaches children to look at the world from several different perspectives. It also teaches them to take data, and report it back to a team, in a way that can be used to guide future action.