London Chess Conference

17th March 2023 - Pre-School Chess

13:00 – 14:00

Registration

Session 1

14:00 – 15:45

Pre-recorded video presentations

Victoria Winifred (USA), Author, Educator

Victoria Winifred was born in Brooklyn, and authored the award-winning middle-grade chess mythological fantasy, “The Princess, the Knight, and the Lost God.” A teacher since 2006, her classroom was a workshop model for Columbia University’s literacy project for ten years. She connects academics with chess, and floods classrooms with the game to the delight and scholastic success of her students. A member of SCBWI and the Author’s Guild of Tennessee, she continues to write chess fiction for kids.

This presentation offers examples of how chess can be used to promote literacy readiness in preschoolers. By giving chess instruction rich in vocabulary and conversation, and providing specific related activities, you can help your child gain mastery of required language arts components for their age group. Simultaneously, the seeds for the love of reading and writing will be sown.

Reach out: TwitterInstagramFacebokLinkedIn 

Ralf Schreiber (Germany) – Founder and president of the educational initiative Schach für Kids e.V. (Chess for Kids)

Ralf Schreiber is a chess expert with the experience of over 53 years of continuous voluntary work. He introduced chess as an educational tool in kindergartens in 2006. From the results of a large-scale experiment and a scientific study with a total of 3,500 children, a certified teaching method was developed that makes it possible to teach chess to children from the age of 3. Ralf was honoured with the highest awards for his work, he received the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Chess Prize of the German Chess Federation.
 
Chess for Kids eV is a non-profit and independent association. We want to encourage children from the age of 3 individually in a playful way and according to scientific-pedagogical knowledge. Our method can be used at home, in day-care centers and elementary schools. Chess is used as a tool for this. The endless possibilities of the oldest game in the world helps to recognize talents and abilities and promotes social behavior, language development, self-confidence, logical thinking and communication. Our teaching method integrates other cultures but also disabled children. This is proven by our large-scale practical test and our scientific study. So far we have been able to introduce our program in over 3,044 educational institutions, countless households in Germany and worldwide.

Tatiana Ogneva actively played chess in her youth. She became the women’s chess champion in her city. She studied psychology and worked as a psychologist at a school  for 10 years with children who had learning difficulties. At the same time, she worked as a coach at a chess school for 20 years . She brought up many strong young chess players and one world champion among cadets. Currently, she works at the school as a chess teacher, as well as with preschoolers. Tatiana Ogneva has written several fairy tales and successfully uses them in her work. She has been invited to international conferences many times as a speaker. In his blog, she regularly shares her methods and scenarios of lessons that she creates herself. Therefore, she was given the honorary nickname “Prometheus” of chess education.

The main conclusion – on the need for the logical-spatial structure to be actualised and supplemented through chess – makes it possible to prepare pre-school children for the future school education and enhance their learnability. So, the main goal of teaching chess to pre-school children is to develop their understanding of logical-spatial relations. Such relations form a structure keeping the traces of active searching and finding a solution matching the purpose of the learning task.

Elvia Zarina Monreal Reyna (Mexico), Chess Teacher and Promoter I Different Chess 

Caborca is the municipal seat of the Caborca Municipality in the Mexican state of Sonora

She was born in Caborca Sonora Mexico, creator of the method.
She is a teacher with a vocation as a facilitator since 2001 with 22 years of experience.
She considers it an honor to have taught in a total of 22 schools in Caborca.
She promoted in 2013 with the help of the Chess Club in the schools and neighborhoods of Caborca, during 1 year and a half afternoons of dancing and living chess in different neighborhoods of Caborca, in such a way that when observing her Directors and teachers of schools, they allowed her teach in 17 schools, visiting them every week for 3 months. For what she was mentioned in the magazine TODO MÉXICO es Ajedrez in 2016.
From 2013 to 2019 at PEPER PIZZA once a month she offered free chess workshops.
She is certified in the following Chess With Purpose courses.
Certified Chess Teacher Trainer with a Pedagogical focus in February 2021.
Certified Trainer at Competitive Levels A March, B May and C June 2021.
Referee April 2022.
Chess promoter November 2022.
In the book La Gamificación en el chess published in Spain in 2020 by the teachers Joaquín Fernández Amigo and Jordi Prió Burgués, there are 2 of her games created in Caborca Sonora Mexico.
She is currently teaching classes at the Pensador Mexicano Elementary School Evening Shift in 4 of its classrooms.


She is part of the excellent group of chess teachers AJEDREZ EDUCACIÓN from Barcelona Spain based on Educational Chess directed by Doctor Joaquín Fernández Amigo.

She participated as an exponent in the following face-to-face and virtual CONGRESSES.
IV International Colloquium on History, Culture and Environment in Caborca April 2013.
II, III and IV Virtual Congress of ajEdu from Barcelona Spain in 2018, 2019 and 2020.
I Virtual Congress of Educational Chess from Uruguay in 2020.
Training SEED TRAINERS teachers Ecuador with Peón Isolated from Colombia 2020 Virtual.
FIAF CHAPTER I Forum of LATIN AMERICAN Plays 2021 with Isolated Pawn from Virtual Colombia.
1st INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF SCHOOL CHESS AND BOARD GAMES 2023 ABOLCO from La Paz Bolivia, Virtual.

On the official facebook page of her Different Chess Elvia Zarina they find material to print and prove that it is true that anyone can learn chess with the pieces with arrows.
https://www.facebook.com/elviazarinamonrealreyna

Another of her pages called ADEZ class videos, there she offers free chess classes. https://www.facebook.com/elviazarinamonrealr/

In lichess she has her study site, which is seen in the ADEZ videos of classes. https://lichess.org/study/by/ElviaZarinaMonrealR
She offers free chess classes online, thanks to the Chess Club in schools and colonies of Caborca on Easter and December holidays by zoom, the invitation appears on the Elvia Zarina Different Chess page.

On the educaplay platform, she offers various free games to learn chess, even if they don’t know anything about anything, they will learn. They can be printed and it is an exam of that topic. https://es.educaplay.com/usuario/6794917-elvia_zarina/
Her email and her cell phone elviazarinamonrealr@gmail.com Cel. 52 637 935 2082.

My presentation is to inform that we can easily teach chess with memories of chess pieces with arrows. Since the student of any age, when seeing the indications, quickly understands their movements and knows how to differentiate between the car and the train track easily.

You can even teach a 1-year-old or any age chess with the memory of pieces with arrows from the moment they can see and distinguish the same pieces. Like when we show them the photo of a relative, we tell them he is your grandpa José, she is your aunt María, just like showing the name of the pieces for 1 minute after all, there are 6 names.

When you play with memory, by placing the pieces so that they can be seen, you see situations that may appear in a game and you learn chess without being in front of a board and with all the pieces. Since there with 12 pieces we can easily teach to detect which piece is free, if there is any illegal that the 2 Kings are together, that there are 2 checks at the same time and many more things from now on.

If we want chess to spread. We occupy teaching it in an easy way. If in all chess clubs, there were 32 pieces with arrows on various boards, since they don’t want to teach with memories, it would be easier to make a decision with that help, in case they don’t remember what moves the piece makes.

The same when integrating students of any age and placing the canvases of the pieces with arrows on their chests when they are representing the pieces in human chess, those in front of them look at how the piece moves and it is easy to understand what they can do x piece. I have to go down the path that corresponds to the piece.

I recommend this while learning names and movements.
To order from Caborca.

Kostas Giouvantsioudis (Greece), High school teacher/Chess Trainer I Greek Chess Federation

Kostas Giouvantsioudis is a high school teacher and director and holds two master’s degrees. He has been involved in chess since 1983, first as an athlete and then as an International Referee, Coach, Chess Teacher and Organizer, he has founded more than 50 clubs and school sections. He has written two chess books:  a fairy tale Once upon a time there was chess and an exercise book Chess and Fantasy.

He has developed two digital scenarios a) Chess – A Learning Tool in Education and b) Chess and Mathematics in First Grade and has trained more than 200 teachers and Kindergarten teachers to teach chess. He is the first teacher in Greece who taught chess during school hours in two primary schools and three Kindergartens, while also teaching chess to blind students.

Together with Eirini Mousiadou they have created the Playful Activities which are a standard global method of using physical and mental exercise for the purpose of learning the game of chess which she presented at the International Conference for School Chess in 2014 in Armenia.

In 2014 he started writing his Ph.D. on the topic: «Chess as a Learning Tool in Education and How It Can Improve Students’ Mathematical Skills. The chess page they maintain together with Eirini Mousiadou is mychess.gr 

Eirini Mousiadou (Greece), Kindergarten teacher/Chess Trainer I Greek Chess Federation

Eirini Mousiadou is a Kindergarten teacher and holds two postgraduate degrees. She has been involved in chess since 1987, initially as an athlete and then as a Referee, Coach and Chess Teacher. She has written two chess books:  a fairy tale Once upon a time there was chess which has been included in the 5th grade language book and an exercise book Chess and Fantasy.  She has trained more than 200 teachers and Kindergarten teachers to teach chess. She has developed an eTwinning program on computational thinking and more than 50 countries participate. She taught as a part-time chess teacher in two elementary schools and three Kindergartens, and since 2001, when she was appointed as a Kindergarten teacher, she has been teaching chess to her students. Together with Kostas Giouvantsioudis, they have created the Playful Activities which are a standard global method of using physical and mental exercise for the purpose of learning the game of chess, which was also presented at the International Conference for School Chess in 2014 in Armenia.

Chess is a learning game that is characterized as a superior spiritual sport. His teaching to young children has many difficulties, as it requires a great deal of self-concentration – a characteristic that is difficult to find at a young age. In addition, the fact that chess is a “sitting game” comes into play conflicts with the temperament of most children. With the purpose to alleviate these difficulties and thus bring the small child close to the benefits of chess, we enriched its teaching with “party games”, which in the beginning we mainly discovered on occasions with our students themselves. Over time we connected chess with others forms of art, which we also present. The act showed us that worth it. The playful activities we suggest contain movement, are entertaining and at the same time practice memory, observation, concentration and composition. We present them based on the degree of difficulty they display, calculating the young ages of the children to whom all these are addressed years. For a game to succeed, it is necessary to have fun from the instructor’s point of view and above all not to appear as a requirement. In addition, we must consider the possible response from the children and shape them accordingly our expectations of them. The child’s participation is good we reward (eg with applause). Finally, we need to repeat the games, increasing each time their difficulty. If a kid can’t make it, he has to be encouraged to try again. The parent or chess instructor can play with them activities that we recommend, but also use them as a stimulus to discover more. 

15:45 – 16:15

Coffee break

Session 2

16:15 – 17:30

Anzel Laubscher (South Africa) – FIDE Chess Education Lecturer, International Advisory Board member and Chess in Education Development team member.

Admitted Advocate in the High Court of South Africa; legal advisor; mediator and involved in various sport dispute resolution commissions. Woman International Master chess player and National team member of South African women’s team since 1998. Master Coach and National Coach Education Advisor in South Africa. FIDE Chess Education Lecturer, International Advisory Board member and Chess in Education Development team member. Sixteen years of lecturing experience and curriculum development at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology. Curriculum development of the Coaching Children Course and training of coaches from 11 different codes for the South African Sport Confederation and Olympic Committee. Qualified as a facilitator, assessor and moderator.

One of the primary differences between children and adults is the lack of life experience found in children. This is one of the reasons why children rely on their imagination to compensate for the lack of experience, especially when it comes to dealing with difficult and novel concepts. It is of paramount importance for the chess educator to enter this world of imagination and build on the current framework in order for a child to understand various concepts.

An inclusive and positive learning environment is of paramount importance to promote optimal learning. The session will illustrate the importance of an age-appropriate learning environment and provide practical classroom examples.

Alessandro Dominici (Italy), CEO I Alfiere Bianco SRL

Founding member and legal representative of Alfiere Bianco company, he has been a professional chess instructor dedicated to the educational use of chess since 2001. He has created several school chess teachings protocols such as Victor chess house, and psychomotricity on giant chess board (in team), all published in 5 languages so far. Among the main ones, he designed and wrote international projects funded by Erasmus+ program such as CASTLE and CGS, also national projects such as Chess Educational Metaphor (SME) and “Train Your Mind” with the Generali group. He has coordinated 17 scientific researches, since 2005, on the educational use of the game of chess, together with Prof. Trinchero (University of Turin), Prof. Martini (ASVAPP) and others. He is currently in charge of the SME project in Italy, which involves 10,000 students in 14 regions and is funded with € 2,000,000.

The CGS platform (Chess: a game to be spread in schools), created thanks to the project partnership financed by the Erasmus+ program, has several models that can be used for teacher training, in Primary and Kindergarten schools. In this presentation, we will look at the model dedicated to psychomotricity on a giant chess board (for pupils aged 4 to 7) and how to participate in the training program through the platform, aimed not only at school teachers but also chess instructors and educators. The CGS project grew out of the previous CASTLE project, from which it was inspired. CASTLE was recognized by the European Commission as a “Success Story,” the only project based on chess in school to achieve this recognition in Europe, out of 150,000 Erasmus-funded projects. You can see the video produced by the European Commission.

Christel Minne – Teacher and author I Thinkers Publishing

Christel Minne is a kindergarten teacher from Belgium who started a chess project in elementary school, some thirteen years ago. For about seven years she has been teaching chess to preschoolers. In her search for material for these young children, she developed her own story and unique approach. Together with Daniël Vanheirzeele (Thinkers Publishing) and illustrator Dirk Dewitte (B), they developed a beautiful picture book with an accompanying toolbox full of tips and games. If you are not getting hooked on this, you better consult a physician😊.

Through a short film clip you will get an idea of my didactic approach which consists mainly of my learning by movement, the dynamic way. Then I like to tell you what accents I put in the picture book and how it differs from other chess books for young children. You will hear in a nutshell how the book was created, what we want to achieve with it, our specific goals and how it can have a serious impact on the (chess) education of young children.

Karel van Delft (The Netherlands) – Coordinator I Chess Academy Apeldoorn & Science Project Manager I Chessable

Karel van Delft runs Chess Academy Apeldoorn in the Netherlands. Besides he is the science project manager of the chess learning platform Chessable.  Karel van Delft is a chess teacher, psychologist and journalist. He is the author of several books about chess, training and psychology; e.g. Chess For Educators and Developing Chess Talent.

18:00 – 19:30   Conference Reception