Welcome to the Coronado Elementary School Chess Club!
We look forward to seeing all returning students and are excited to welcome new students this year.
Welcome to the Coronado Chess Club!
We look forward to seeing all returning students and are excited to welcome new students this year. This page contains chess club information we hope you will find useful.
Please feel free to forward this to others.
Purpose
The purpose of the Coronado Chess Club is to provide a fun environment where students can learn to play the game of chess and continuously improve, learning important life skills along the way. We have a large spectrum of playing levels in the club. We have built a program over the years that we hope helps everyone in the club, from the new beginners to more advanced players.
Organization
The students are organized by chess playing ability groups. There are currently four groups that are referred to as Pawns, Minors, Majors and Royals. Students receive instruction each week based on their current ability group. After an initial sorting period during the first few weeks of the year, students generally stay in the same group for the remainder of the year.
A "ladder" system is used to continually sort the students. Every week, after the chess instruction, the students play games with other students. As a student wins, he or she moves up the ladder and as games are lost, a student moves down. The top 15 to 20 students in the club are in the "Royals" room, the next 15 to 20 in the "Majors" room, then "Minors", then "Pawns 2". In the library, we have the "Pawns 1" group. This is typically the largest group with between 25 and 30 students. This group is composed of new club students, those that do not yet know how to play and those with very little formal chess training.
Communication
Our primary method of communication is e-mail and our website. For those who have another e-mail address you prefer we use when communicating information about chess club, please use the link below to sign up. Please also encourage a spouse or other family member to register. Thank you!
Parent Support
We are a 100% volunteer chess club. We really appreciate our amazing volunteer support! We always need a few extra hands after the lesson as the students are playing their games, to monitor play, reinforce positive behaviors and teach proper movement of the chess pieces. Please let us know if you can help. Even just once or twice a month is wonderful.
Additional Events
Apart from playing during chess club, we participate in a few other chess events during the year.
1. Interscholastic Tournaments:
We participate in a local chess league called the Denver Chess League or DCL. The number of other schools that participate will determine the length of the tournament season. The chess matches are generally played between early November and late February. The schools that participate play with their top 4 to 10 players. Matches are held at home or away. We may need to host 2 or 3 matches and then travel 2 or 3 times. The home school typically provides snacks.
2. Other Tournaments:
There are other scholastic chess tournaments in the Denver metro area and along the front range that students can attend on their own (completely optional). A chess tournament generally consists of each student playing 5 games on a Saturday. Students compete against other students within grade ranges. These are usually K-1, 2-3 and 4-6. Trophies are often awarded to the top 3-5 players in each division. Each year, we have several students that attend tournaments. The Colorado state scholastic chess tournament is the largest of these tournaments. It is typically held in mid February.
3. End of Year Club Tournament:
The final five weeks of chess club we do not have any instruction. Instead we have our own internal tournament. Each week the students play each other in their room, playing one game each week.
4. End of Year Breakfast:
The last day of chess club we have a breakfast and award ceremony. We like to hold this in the cafeteria. We celebrate the year, present awards to the top students from each group and recognize the accomplishments from the year.
Chess Club Picture Day
After the club t-shirts (and hoodies) arrive, we will have a club picture day for the year book. More details to come. We plan to order the shirts soon.
Chess Club Payment
We ask for $50 per student to help cover our costs, including a t-shirt for those that join.
If you do want to order a chess club hoodie, we will need payment. The optional hoodies are available in grey, red, black or forest green. They come with the Coronado Chess Club Logo embroidered on the front left ($25). For an additional $5, they will also include the first name under the logo. Payments can be made here: