How Do Online Group Chess Lessons Work?

If you’re considering different kinds of chess lessons for your child, you might be wondering about convenient online classes. How will the hour-long session be spent, and what sorts of things can you expect your child to learn? Here’s a guide to everything you can anticipate from online group chess lessons with Silver Knights Chess Academy:

• Starting the class

• Lesson Time and Lesson Levels

• Practice Game Time

• Scheduling Lessons

• Bonus Lessons and Tournaments!

Starting the Online Chess Class

Each class begins with a few minutes of conversation while students join the room. While no one except the coach is required to appear on camera, face-to-face participation not only tends to make the session more fun and engaging for kids, but allows them to familiarize themselves with their classmates, discuss common interests, and form friendships.

Once everyone has settled in, the students participate in a quick, fun icebreaker that helps them get to know their coach and peers. Some recent prompts our coaches have had their groups respond to:

• What's your favorite afternoon snack?

• Would you rather have the power of flight or invisibility?

• What’s something you’re looking forward to doing this weekend?
  

As experienced teachers, our coaches know the importance of establishing a friendly positive atmosphere at the start of each lesson. 

Lesson Time and Lesson Levels

After introductions have been made, the lesson starts. Though the subject matter differs between each of our eight levels, every online class includes  a 20-25 minute lesson. Students are encouraged to engage with the lesson material verbally and through participation in quizzes, making moves on the demonstration board, and by playing simultaneous games against the coach to test each child’s mastery of core concepts. Our small class size gives every student a chance to participate. 

For beginners, a popular activity during lesson time is “class versus coach,” where students team up and take turns making moves for one color while the coach plays the other. One example beloved by younger learners is “Mad King,” a chess variant where an army of white’s back rank pieces (the rooks, knights, bishops, queen, and king) attempts to secure a victory against a lone black king by checking him on every turn.

Like lesson content, activities will vary from level to level. Here's what players at each level learn:

• Brand new chess players start at the Pawns level, where they learn how to name the squares on a chess board and move the pieces. 

• Knights level students (beginners who have mastered piece movement) learn the fundamentals of the game, like the difference between check and checkmate, the rules of castling, piece values, simple checkmating strategies, and basic piece defense. Try this checkmate in one puzzle from a Knights class–if you can solve it, you might be ready to move up!

White to move. Can you complete the last step in the ladder checkmate?

• In Bishops classes, students learn further essentials: opening principles, basic endgame strategy, tactics like forks and pins, further piece defense skills, and additional checkmating patterns like the king and queen and smothered checkmates.

• Rooks, the intermediate level, expands on these concepts and explores deeper elements of the game like discovered attacks, simple gambits, and some endgame technique.
  
  
• These topics are explored further at the Queens level, designed for students with online ratings around 1000-1400, where students study famous games from players like Magnus Carlsen, Paul Morphy, and Jose Raul Capablanca. Can you solve this puzzle? If so, you’re ready to graduate to Kings!

White's last move was Qg2--now it's black to move. Can you find the best move for black?

• Advanced students progress to our two Kings1 and Kings2 levels, which focus on deeper study of tactics, strategy, and game analysis. Most Kings students play in over the board tournaments. These also tend to be students who are significantly advanced for their age and can have difficulty finding a peer group to learn with in person.

• Students with tournament ratings above 1400 can take Elite classes, taught by Grandmasters, where they go deep into tactics, strategy, and calculation. Our top students in these classes are (literally!) masters and are typically among the top-ranked players for their age in the country.
  

Curious what level your child is? Try a $5 Chess Class to find out!

Practice Game Time - Supervised Play

Following the lesson, the remainder of the class is spent playing chess. Depending on the class level and number of students in the group, this can happen in several different ways. For us, it’s important that about half the time of each class is spent practicing and playing. Because classes are grouped by skill level, students will always be able to play fair, competitive games during their online classes with us.

On a fundamental level, chess is something you do, and the best way to learn is by doing.  For beginners, it is important to simply play games and apply newly gained knowledge from recent lessons.  For more advanced students, we place more emphasis on analysis of your own games.  Our coaches are on hand to observe the games and, during analysis, can review and discuss individual decisions. 

Scheduling Online Group Chess Classes

One of the biggest benefits to online group chess lessons is the flexibility they offer, particularly for those with hectic schedules. Classes at each level are offered numerous times throughout the week. When signing their child up for a lesson each week, parents can browse their options by group level or by coach, making it simple to stick with a favored instructor or squeeze in a class at whatever time works best for them.

For example, here’s what our current weekly schedule looks like for the Queens level:

Too busy on weeknights to squeeze in a class? Join us on Saturday mornings instead.

There’s also no fee for classes that are missed or need to be rescheduled–we want the schedule to work for your family!

Bonus Lessons and Tournaments!

In addition to weekly small group lessons, the Silver Knights academy program offers interested students opportunities to participate in a number of extra group activities. Bonus lessons on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays give students a chance to learn new concepts from highly experienced instructors in a larger group setting. 

For many students, one small group lesson per week is the right pace.  Our bonus lessons and tournaments give you a flexible way to add more chess per week to satisfy your child's chess curiosity. 

Our bonus lessons are usually followed by online practice tournaments.  The larger group size makes for a fun, competitive tournament. You can decide whether your child attends just the lesson (typically 30 minutes) or stays for the tournament (another 30-60 minutes).  Our Saturday morning tournaments allow kids to mingle with students from other levels while testing their chess skills in friendly games.

While believe that live lessons and supervised games are the best way for kids to learn chess, online resources are increasingly important too.  Each student’s academy membership also comes with a gold membership at ChessKid, where they can practice their chess with unlimited puzzles, study new ideas through interactive computer-based lessons, and play games against AI bots or other kids. 

If a small group chess lesson sounds like something your child might enjoy, Silver Knights offers trial chess classes for just $5!