I’d recommend going to the library and picking up a bunch of chess books. Complete Idiot’s Guide to Chess is a good beginning book that covers the basics and some strategy and tactics.

You might want to learn for yourself how to set up a board, what the different pieces do and their material value, and good opening principles.

In setting up the board, think “white in the lower right” which means the square in the low right corner needs to be white. Also remember “queen on color,” which means that the white queen starts on a white square and the black queen starts on a dark square.

The material value of pieces is expressed in terms of pawns (or points) as follows: pawns= 1 pawn; knights & bishops= 3 pawns; rooks= 5 pawns; queen= 9 pawns; king= priceless.

Some basic opening principles are to move the king or queen pawn out 1 or 2 squares, develop the “knights before bishops,” and then castle. A general rule of thumb is to not move the same piece twice in the opening. This isn’t always the case, but it’s a good fundamental to stress sound piece development in the opening rather than moving a single pawn all the way down the board or bringing out the queen too early.

You also might consider getting a game on your PC or smartphone. Chessmaster is a pretty good one and I have the Chess Free app on my Android. This way they can play and explore how the pieces move.

The toughest piece for kids to grasp is usually the knight, which moves in an L shape and can jump over other pieces. I stress to my kids that knights are best in the middle of the board and in the middle of the action and I’ll use pennies to show where the knight can possibly move and ask them which moves are best and why. Remember, “a knight on the rim is grim,” meaning that a knight on the rim or edge of the board can’t cover as many squares (4 or 2) as it can in the middle (8).

I play against my 7yo now and again and I have her set up both sides of the board. She can identify the different pawns (king pawn, bishop pawn, etc.), and she knows to develop her knights and bishops and castle. She likes the taking part of a transaction, but I’m trying to teach her now about the what if? and if/then aspects of a move.

Check your local library. Some have free-for-all chess sessions once or twice/week, mostly attended by entry level kids.

Learn the most basic rules and watch advanced players play. Yahoo chess is good place for lurkers. Study endgame routines – don’t be the guy who draws with knight and bishop.

My 5y old plays solid game after some 100 hours of practice over the past 6 months. Keeping my mouth shut while he’s playing other kids is hard.

I can help you there. My son started playing as a 4-year old and is now 10. I never played but, like you are planning to do, I learned as he learned.

You have lots of options.

1) Fritz and Chesster software / game. This is the best way for kids to learn, I think. It is designed for kids but teaches serious chess. The software technology is a little outdated but as a teaching tool, is simply excellent – fun, funny, educational. Dad will learn alot, too. There are 3 levels. I discovered it after my son already knew the game so we started with level 2 and have not yet bought 3. If your kids knows how to castle, know what en passant means, know the value of each piece, have basic check-mating skills, they may be able to skip level 1. Level 2 introduces forks, skewers, pins, endgame, openings. So much to learn and a really fun package.

2) I find chess books horrible. Very complicated, hard to follow. Have to spend way too much time reading to understand anytyhing useful. Even books written for beginners are annoyingly unclear and dry.

Only exception I found is – Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess. It is a series of situational puzzles that end up teaching alot. My son went through this book before he could read. I read him the problems and he solved them. Starts out very simple and gets very tricky later on. Lots of fun.

A book called Traps and Zaps would be a second choice later on.

3) chess.com – allows you to play correspondence chess w/ your kids. It is difficult to find time to play a full game, so I play him online and we each have 7 days to move. Can play from home, work, iPad, etc. He can play when he gets home from school and I can play after he goes to bed. I travelled last week but continued playing chess w/ my son and friends. Chess.com seems to have a rich learning environment also but I haven’t gone there.

4) San Diego chess club. We went once when he was 5 years old but the kids’ night lasted until 9:30 or 10 pm and it was just too late for him, even on Friday. I hassled them about it and they refused to move it earlier. I was annoyed. We should probably check back in on that now that he is 10.

FYI – I took my son to a tournament at the chess club. The choice was beginner or intermediate. He was beating everyone at his school so I put him in intermediate and he got creamed. So, those are good players down there, compared to after-school chess players, I’d say.

5) For your son, not you, check for after school programs. A guy named Larry Evans runs them in San Diego. Mountain Chess or something like that.

6) Summer camps. Did a week-long Larry Evans camp one Summer and he really enjoyed it.