Its been so long I have been waiting to get back to blog and what better reason than today.
So my dad Dr Mukund Mahajan has been persuading me to introduce playing "Chess" to Aria( My 3 year old daughter ). First few times I just said YES to my dad and hoped to get to it some time when she has grown up a bit more ! she's what 3 right now :) yeah.? and Chess ..seems like a bit of far cry, pie in the sky kind of dream.
It was only last weekend that my entire family including parents + ketki's ( sister ) in law's family left us and went to their respective places. It's our first week with just Vandita , Aria and myself at home..Yes we also purchased and moved to Ridgewood..our new home away from Newport, Jersey city. So, in short, a lot of changes in our lives.
Yesterday, I decided to introduce Chess to Aria as an experiment.
Its been 2 sessions in last 2 days and ohh boy am I amazed !!
Day 1 we just sat and talked about the
- name of the game
- the chess board
- two players
- white vs black
- individual pieces ( pawn, rook, horse, bishop , Queen, King )
- Where do these pieces sit on either side and on what particular blocks of the boards.
To our mind this seems obvious...wait what we have spent 30 years and hence we already know how this pans out in real life ...let me explain.
Imagine yourself trying to explain this to a Pre Kindergarten kid.3 year old.
Name of the game: ok that's fairly easy..new game Chess fine.
Chess Board: sure particular board is required ..great.
Two players..white vs black.. ohh boy the fun has begun..
barrage of questions followed :
"but I want more people to play with me...
why onlllllly 2...
I want both white and black..
White and black are friends..
I want to play with you ..sit with me on my side.near me.."
oh boy , aren't these amazing questions to answer..how do you even wander about going through that..don't know how, but somehow we were able to move on from there.
"We settled on two players , white is mine, black is yours."
Individual pieces: this surprisingly wasn't as difficult. Turns out by now kids have definitely understood that a thing can have a specific name...and all things "like" it are called by the same name.
We also learnt that there are 8 pawns, but only 2 horsey...and somehow got through all the counts/pieces of individual type. great exercise..we also got through where does each pawn sit.
Imagine you have been teaching your kid throughout that everyone has to SHARE...share your toys..share you space..what not..then suddenly dad comes in barging with this new thing, that Black is mine, and white is yours. That's not it: Rook only sits at the corner and pawn only takes the front row..well Row 2 based on where you look at it ! but to my surprise this was the easiest part: identifying the pieces individually and assigning them a specific location. Great exercise so far..we even tried to arrange both black and white side..and she did it ! yuhooo I was already getting a kick out of it and she was thoroughly enjoying this new found "sorting" logic !
Day 1 ended with she doing this chess board arrangement... 3 times and I felt it was a great time to stop and assimilate this much. It was already way more than what I had expected her to sit and listen in the first sitting, Peaceful sleep !
Day 2 : today.
Post Dinner I gave her three options
1) Build her new kitchen
2) Learn Chess
3) Make new stories
To my utter surprise, I felt she was actually thinking and made a conscious choice of selecting an option. I had told her..we will do whatever she picks and we did just that, We reiterated that question/choices couple of times and all the times she gave only one consistent answer "learn Chess" ...wow this was turning out exciting already. Post Dinner, session 2 began and we did following in order
- Arrange white and black pieces again on the board
- Start dealing with rules of Chess
- First rule : Pawn's move ----------one step Front "
- Second Rule : won't describe just yet...let's wait for the descriptive section
So arranging white/black side..yes she did forget a few pieces like rook/bishop but was quick to remember. we settled both white and black sides which was refreshing to see how the memory was building up. I believe it might sound simple to us but arranging a chess board isn't the easiest thing in the world ..specially for a 3 yr old baby ! go Aria ! Really proud of her right now.
I was going to stop just on this but it felt like she was ready for more..and there we began for "Rules of Chess". Now we lucked out here. As part of her growing up ritual, we have been following some simple things..instead of shouting on the road to hold hand, we have made some songs..basic building blocks as rules of engagement
for Example :
We have a specific tune in which we say
"On the Road"...
Aria replies
"Hold the Hand"
there you go, we have our song..."ON THE ROAD.....HOLD the Hand."
To our surprise she started responding to these audio clues and it kept getting easier and easier to add more rules. As soon as you utter the first part of the rule..she utters the second part and surprise surprise..she actually acts on it...right away. Guess what we have many such rules
- On the road...hold the hand
- In the Store ...no touching
- When you are sick ....rest is best
- If you are sad/Tired ....take a deep breath and count to 4..
Check out this one..lol pardon me but I have so say this
- Potty in the .......POTTY seat
Not in the ....Diaper..
lol sorry.
Anyways, so yeah we do have our rules of life...you say you don't believe me..check out this Rules of Life by Aria Mahajan impromptu stage performance she gave couple of days back
Anyways..
It was easy to kind of piggyback on that and introduce our first Chess rule .
Pawn moves ....One step Front.
Pawn moves...one step front..
Sing along..
Pawn moves...one step front.
And boom we have our first rule of Chess..just like rule of life..she now had rules of Chess.
Thanks to the school/day care, these days, kids already understand what does it mean to take turns..so ,surprisingly she was already prepared to wait for my turn and only then play her turn. What happened next was truly amazing. For the next 15 mins, Aria and I just played turn by turn..all pawns ..just moving them one step front.. at a time..Singing the song " Pawn moves....one step front" . It was such a fulfilling experience.
To see your kid scaling this height..oh man..wonderful sight. I started getting carried away and after 15 mins of rule 1..thought of introducing rule 2.
Rule 2
Have a partial song yet..as it got really interesting.
In the 15 mins of Pawn moving one step front, we had enough pawns facing each other..being able to "Kill" opposing pawns. But wait how do you actually teach that..How do you say this word "kill" other player..This is getting tougher than what I had originally imagined.
Surprise Surprise...Aria came to the rescue herself.
Out of nowhere she decided to pick one of her Horsey..( yeh they call it horsey..not just plain horse )
She picked both her Horsey and put them out of Chess board ..facing face to face ( Kissing ) and said..they are doing Huggy now...
What in the world lol, this was classic..Epic.I so wish this was being recorded right then.
Trying to hide my enthusiasm..we continued in serious tone..yeah aria..they can actually do huggy.
great idea..kid came for dad's rescue. after Finishing up the Horsey romance discussion , we said, ok lets see how the pawns can do huggy...yeah that's rule nu 2..
Pawn not only do " Pawns move ...one step front " but now rule no 2 says, then can hug other pawns..
"Pawns hug ..one step cross"
"Pawns hug ..one step cross"
Repeat
"Pawns hug ..one step cross"
yeah yeah..I know I am getting carried away but believe it or not ..this is exactly how it went.Super awesome feeling ..by this time though she was getting annoyed that I was only allowing black pawn to hug white pawn ...ONLY...she kept arguing back ..my black pawn can hug my other back pawn ..
lol I didn't want to break her heart saying no and honestly didn't have a good reason why not.
we ended on that note, where few pawns and horsey..and rooks were hugging each other in their little square blocks on the chess board.
Long live Chess and Cheers to parenting experiences.
It can't get better than this.
Thanks to my dad who kept pushing me to do this and kudos kudos to Aria for being such a focused/obedient kid. Amazing experience.
If you have suggestions on song no 2...
"Black huggy only white" rule..do drop in a line :)
and as always, don't forget
PAWN MOVES.....one stop front .
So my dad Dr Mukund Mahajan has been persuading me to introduce playing "Chess" to Aria( My 3 year old daughter ). First few times I just said YES to my dad and hoped to get to it some time when she has grown up a bit more ! she's what 3 right now :) yeah.? and Chess ..seems like a bit of far cry, pie in the sky kind of dream.
It was only last weekend that my entire family including parents + ketki's ( sister ) in law's family left us and went to their respective places. It's our first week with just Vandita , Aria and myself at home..Yes we also purchased and moved to Ridgewood..our new home away from Newport, Jersey city. So, in short, a lot of changes in our lives.
Yesterday, I decided to introduce Chess to Aria as an experiment.
Its been 2 sessions in last 2 days and ohh boy am I amazed !!
Day 1 we just sat and talked about the
- name of the game
- the chess board
- two players
- white vs black
- individual pieces ( pawn, rook, horse, bishop , Queen, King )
- Where do these pieces sit on either side and on what particular blocks of the boards.
To our mind this seems obvious...wait what we have spent 30 years and hence we already know how this pans out in real life ...let me explain.
Imagine yourself trying to explain this to a Pre Kindergarten kid.3 year old.
Name of the game: ok that's fairly easy..new game Chess fine.
Chess Board: sure particular board is required ..great.
Two players..white vs black.. ohh boy the fun has begun..
barrage of questions followed :
"but I want more people to play with me...
why onlllllly 2...
I want both white and black..
White and black are friends..
I want to play with you ..sit with me on my side.near me.."
oh boy , aren't these amazing questions to answer..how do you even wander about going through that..don't know how, but somehow we were able to move on from there.
"We settled on two players , white is mine, black is yours."
Individual pieces: this surprisingly wasn't as difficult. Turns out by now kids have definitely understood that a thing can have a specific name...and all things "like" it are called by the same name.
We also learnt that there are 8 pawns, but only 2 horsey...and somehow got through all the counts/pieces of individual type. great exercise..we also got through where does each pawn sit.
Imagine you have been teaching your kid throughout that everyone has to SHARE...share your toys..share you space..what not..then suddenly dad comes in barging with this new thing, that Black is mine, and white is yours. That's not it: Rook only sits at the corner and pawn only takes the front row..well Row 2 based on where you look at it ! but to my surprise this was the easiest part: identifying the pieces individually and assigning them a specific location. Great exercise so far..we even tried to arrange both black and white side..and she did it ! yuhooo I was already getting a kick out of it and she was thoroughly enjoying this new found "sorting" logic !
Day 1 ended with she doing this chess board arrangement... 3 times and I felt it was a great time to stop and assimilate this much. It was already way more than what I had expected her to sit and listen in the first sitting, Peaceful sleep !
Day 2 : today.
Post Dinner I gave her three options
1) Build her new kitchen
2) Learn Chess
3) Make new stories
To my utter surprise, I felt she was actually thinking and made a conscious choice of selecting an option. I had told her..we will do whatever she picks and we did just that, We reiterated that question/choices couple of times and all the times she gave only one consistent answer "learn Chess" ...wow this was turning out exciting already. Post Dinner, session 2 began and we did following in order
- Arrange white and black pieces again on the board
- Start dealing with rules of Chess
- First rule : Pawn's move ----------one step Front "
- Second Rule : won't describe just yet...let's wait for the descriptive section
So arranging white/black side..yes she did forget a few pieces like rook/bishop but was quick to remember. we settled both white and black sides which was refreshing to see how the memory was building up. I believe it might sound simple to us but arranging a chess board isn't the easiest thing in the world ..specially for a 3 yr old baby ! go Aria ! Really proud of her right now.
I was going to stop just on this but it felt like she was ready for more..and there we began for "Rules of Chess". Now we lucked out here. As part of her growing up ritual, we have been following some simple things..instead of shouting on the road to hold hand, we have made some songs..basic building blocks as rules of engagement
for Example :
We have a specific tune in which we say
"On the Road"...
Aria replies
"Hold the Hand"
there you go, we have our song..."ON THE ROAD.....HOLD the Hand."
To our surprise she started responding to these audio clues and it kept getting easier and easier to add more rules. As soon as you utter the first part of the rule..she utters the second part and surprise surprise..she actually acts on it...right away. Guess what we have many such rules
- On the road...hold the hand
- In the Store ...no touching
- When you are sick ....rest is best
- If you are sad/Tired ....take a deep breath and count to 4..
Check out this one..lol pardon me but I have so say this
- Potty in the .......POTTY seat
Not in the ....Diaper..
lol sorry.
Anyways, so yeah we do have our rules of life...you say you don't believe me..check out this Rules of Life by Aria Mahajan impromptu stage performance she gave couple of days back
It was easy to kind of piggyback on that and introduce our first Chess rule .
Pawn moves ....One step Front.
Pawn moves...one step front..
Sing along..
Pawn moves...one step front.
And boom we have our first rule of Chess..just like rule of life..she now had rules of Chess.
Thanks to the school/day care, these days, kids already understand what does it mean to take turns..so ,surprisingly she was already prepared to wait for my turn and only then play her turn. What happened next was truly amazing. For the next 15 mins, Aria and I just played turn by turn..all pawns ..just moving them one step front.. at a time..Singing the song " Pawn moves....one step front" . It was such a fulfilling experience.
To see your kid scaling this height..oh man..wonderful sight. I started getting carried away and after 15 mins of rule 1..thought of introducing rule 2.
Rule 2
Have a partial song yet..as it got really interesting.
In the 15 mins of Pawn moving one step front, we had enough pawns facing each other..being able to "Kill" opposing pawns. But wait how do you actually teach that..How do you say this word "kill" other player..This is getting tougher than what I had originally imagined.
Surprise Surprise...Aria came to the rescue herself.
Out of nowhere she decided to pick one of her Horsey..( yeh they call it horsey..not just plain horse )
She picked both her Horsey and put them out of Chess board ..facing face to face ( Kissing ) and said..they are doing Huggy now...
What in the world lol, this was classic..Epic.I so wish this was being recorded right then.
Trying to hide my enthusiasm..we continued in serious tone..yeah aria..they can actually do huggy.
great idea..kid came for dad's rescue. after Finishing up the Horsey romance discussion , we said, ok lets see how the pawns can do huggy...yeah that's rule nu 2..
Pawn not only do " Pawns move ...one step front " but now rule no 2 says, then can hug other pawns..
"Pawns hug ..one step cross"
"Pawns hug ..one step cross"
Repeat
"Pawns hug ..one step cross"
yeah yeah..I know I am getting carried away but believe it or not ..this is exactly how it went.Super awesome feeling ..by this time though she was getting annoyed that I was only allowing black pawn to hug white pawn ...ONLY...she kept arguing back ..my black pawn can hug my other back pawn ..
lol I didn't want to break her heart saying no and honestly didn't have a good reason why not.
we ended on that note, where few pawns and horsey..and rooks were hugging each other in their little square blocks on the chess board.
Long live Chess and Cheers to parenting experiences.
It can't get better than this.
Thanks to my dad who kept pushing me to do this and kudos kudos to Aria for being such a focused/obedient kid. Amazing experience.
If you have suggestions on song no 2...
"Black huggy only white" rule..do drop in a line :)
and as always, don't forget
PAWN MOVES.....one stop front .
