Fairmeadows Chess Extravaganza!
The Fairmeadows chess season, and perhaps my chess coaching career, came to an end last night at the Fairmeadows chess awards cookie and lemonade event.
We had 65 kids, grades 1-6, in the club, and it was nice that Rob finished as one of the top five overall players for the year:
Rob, Danielle (overall champ), Luke, Garrett and Jake.
It was consolation for the less stellar showing of the team he led in the club team competition. Here his team receives its 8th place trophies.
Too bad there were only eight teams.
It was a lot of fun to help out. I tried to teach a simple lesson each week, and sometimes I gave little candy bars to students who showed me that they "got it" in their games. True, there were still kids at the end who struggled with castling and with checkmating with a queen or a rook vs. a lone king, but I think they had fun, even if they weren't always intently concentrating on their chess (see girl in the pink shirt).
Two moms made it go, Mrs. Wheeler and Mrs. Seaton. It takes a lot of work and patience to run the club every school Friday from September to April. I'm not sure how they do it.
They are lobbying to get me to help out again next year, even though Rob will be in junior high. I don't think they have any organized chess there, so I may make it back to Fairmeadows some.
We had 65 kids, grades 1-6, in the club, and it was nice that Rob finished as one of the top five overall players for the year:
Rob, Danielle (overall champ), Luke, Garrett and Jake.
It was consolation for the less stellar showing of the team he led in the club team competition. Here his team receives its 8th place trophies.
Too bad there were only eight teams.
It was a lot of fun to help out. I tried to teach a simple lesson each week, and sometimes I gave little candy bars to students who showed me that they "got it" in their games. True, there were still kids at the end who struggled with castling and with checkmating with a queen or a rook vs. a lone king, but I think they had fun, even if they weren't always intently concentrating on their chess (see girl in the pink shirt).
Two moms made it go, Mrs. Wheeler and Mrs. Seaton. It takes a lot of work and patience to run the club every school Friday from September to April. I'm not sure how they do it.
They are lobbying to get me to help out again next year, even though Rob will be in junior high. I don't think they have any organized chess there, so I may make it back to Fairmeadows some.
posted by Joe at 8:17 PM
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