Pre-Lesson #2: The Rook

After the king, I introduce the rook. In my opinion, the rook is the second easiest piece to learn how to move in chess. The rook can move forward, backward, left, or right as many squares as possible.  The tops of the rooks that we use in chess club have four slots carved into the top. I have the children place the rooks on the chessboard in such a way that the slots point to the directions that the rook can move.  I have the children think of the rook as moving like a plus "+".

I created a game called "rook wars". The children set up a chess board with the kings and the rooks only with a pawn in front of each rook. The pawns act like roadblocks to the rooks. This helps the children learn that the pieces in chess do not jump over others like they do in checkers. I teach the concepts of attack and capture with this game, too, along with the idea of defense with a strategy that I call "the ABC's of chess". I'll explain the ABC's of chess in another post.

Here is a link to a word document and a video about the rook.

Here's a link to a document and video for rook wars.