How to Play Chess for Kids

Have fun learning how to play chess for kids! Great news, these methods work for grown ups too. I know this to be true because neither my husband or I knew how to play chess and learned the game right alongside our kids!

Teach Kids How To Play Chess (Without Any Chess Experience!)

True story: my 3 kids and I spent an entire month living with a beloved elderly relative of mine in a retirement community across the country from our home while we helped pack up his house for downsizing. We slept on a fold out couch and made the kids a fort bed under the beautiful, walnut baby grand piano.

In between selling things online, packing up boxes upon boxes, and enjoying the tender memories we were sorting through, we took walks in the beautiful scenery, we reveled in all of the amazing old books, and we interacted with a LOT of incredible elderly people.

Yes, it was a stressful time in some ways, but it was also a beautiful time in many ways. The kids were a constant delight to all of the people in the community who didn’t see kids all that often.

What does this have to do with chess? Well, my brain doesn’t always make sense, but keep going… I promise I’ll get there.

Even when I thought the kids weren’t using their best manners at dinner, these wise older folks would walk up to tell us goodnight and that it will go by too fast so “enjoy it!” They especially loved talking about how happy it made them to see the kids playing outside in the mud when it was raining or with their click rifles shooting each other!

We were treated with so much kindness and grace, and I am still so grateful for all of the advice and warmth shared with us during that time.

Another part of that month-long adventure that I cherish is that almost every night after dinner in the dining hall, the kids asked if they could play chess in the common room! For the stretch of the trip that my mom was with us, often she would go play with them too. Same goes for the stretch of time when my husband was able to be there as well.

But there were many nights it was just my two oldest boys (8 and 9 at the time) going off to play chess together. Sometimes “playing chess” meant that the kids would play like goofballs and pretend the pieces were guys from Star Wars killing each other.

But sometimes, this mama had the pleasure of walking out of the dining hall into the common area to see her two boys thoughtfully engaged in a REAL chess match!

Thankfully before we trekked across the country, we’d spent some time learning the game! As a former know-nothing-about-chess, I relied heavily on resources to learn how to play chess for kids and adults. I wasn’t able to just sit my kids down and teach them chess because I didn’t know anything about the game except the names of the pieces.

Best Resources to Learn How to Play Chess for Kids

Chess books for kids have been super helpful for building our strategy, but most of the people in my crew are the learn-by-doing types and we needed hands-on practical game play to learn and truly begin to understand the game.

After exploring a lot of methods, there are three games I recommend for learning how to play chess for kids!

First, my TOP recommendation! AKA our family’s favorite chess-learning game for adults, teens, and kids 5ish (depending on interest in learning the game) and up:

No Stress Chess

When our elementary-aged boys took a great interest in learning to play chess, we gave them this game as either a birthday or Christmas gift. In order to learn the ways the pieces move, you draw cards to tell you where to move.

Based on the oldest picture I could find of the kids playing it, I actually think our middle son was a preschooler when they started playing this:

There are multiple levels of play and each level slowly weans you off of dependence on the cards and increases your strategy.

Another great game that benefited my elementary-aged kids immensely is Solitaire Chess. My oldest has been playing this since kindergarten and he actually started playing it before I started teaching him to play chess!

The version we own is not magnetic and has regular chess pieces, but it appears the manufacturer has switched to a magnetic version. We’ll probably grab the new version before our next roadtrip!

Next on the list is a chess learning game that I recommend with disclaimers.

When my barely-4-year-old wanted to play chess with her brothers, my No Stress Chess game was being borrowed by a friend, and I felt like it was a little too advanced for her.

I did some research and came across a chess set game that claimed it could teach her to play. For younger kids who want to learn, I mostly recommend this game (with a few disclaimers, see below):

Story Time Chess

I was intrigued, but I have to admit I was totally turned off by the obnoxious illustrations! The brilliant part of this game is how they teach the ways the pieces move.

Each chess piece has “mini-games” that you teach your child to play, and by playing those games, they understand the rules of how the pieces are allowed to move.

Something that annoys me about this particular chess teaching tool is that the mini-games are all paired with the most stupid stories I have ever read. I think the stories are stupid on purpose to make them more memorable, but I really don’t like the stories.

The game is called “Story Time Chess” but I just teach my daughter the mini-games without the stories. We’re not all the way through all of the pieces yet, but so far I haven’t found the stories to be essential to teaching my child the mini-games!

I’m looking forward to starting her on No Stress Chess, but I do believe that the mini-games in Story Time Chess really helped to solidify the way the pieces move!

A Few Tips for Teaching Kids How to Play Chess

Don’t force young kids to finish an entire chess game.
Keep it fun! Sip fun drinks, munch on some popcorn, etc.
If your kids ask to play chess with you, do your best to put down what you’re doing and say “YES!”
Keep in mind that chess can be mentally taxing, so consider playing it at a different time of day than when you might be doing more challenging lessons or homework.

Have fun learning how to play chess! Kids and adults can learn from the games above, and I also recently discovered if you’re using an Apple computer, chess is preinstalled! I have yet to beat the computer on easy, so clearly I’m not very good. But hey, I’m having fun and my kids are too.

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