At the Denton High School Open House Night on September 12, 2011, known as “Bronco Night,” teachers opened their classrooms to parents. Since chess club sponsor Fred Mueller was busy meeting parents of his pre-Calculus and Calculus students, I volunteered to be the responsible adult for his math and chess club table in the main hallway. Chess club (and math club) positioned our table near Tennis and Choir.
I am teaching another series of chess classes at the Denton Public Library, North Branch. Classes are for children ages 5-14, start September 16 (2-3:30 p.m.), and run for six Fridays. This series of classes is called Thinking with Chess. The challenges and puzzles in the Thinking with Chess classes emphasize skills important for academics, such as classifying, pattern recognition, decoding, creating, and predicting.
I attended the first meeting of the UT Dallas chess club for 2011-2012. I spoke about the Chess Online courses.. There is still time to register, as the courses officially begin October 24. Although many students who take the Chess Online courses are not chess players, each semester I have a handful of chess team members as students too.
Dr. Alexey Root will present August 13, 2011 at the Denton Writers League. Her topic is "non-fiction writing niches." Her presentation will draw from her own experiences writing about chess and education. The presentation begins at 10:30 a.m.
My review of Director Lynn Hamrick’s Chess Kids DVD was posted June 30, 2011 on Chess Life Online.
Dr. Alexey Root (that’s me) will be giving a lecture at Texas A&M;’s SMaRT camp for high school students on Monday, June 20. The lecture topic is “math and chess.” I’m adapting material from my book Science, Math, Checkmate: 32 Chess Activities for Inquiry and Problem Solving for this lecture.
My article “Chess is like a globe” is featured on the FIDE Chess in Schools Commission Web site.
I (Dr. Alexey Root) will be teaching June 6-10 and June 13-17 at the UT Dallas Summer Chess Camps.
Homeschooled students joined students from Denton High School, Ryan High School, and Immaculate Conception Catholic School for a tournament on May 14, 2011 at the Denton Public Library, North Branch. In all, fourteen players from ninth grade to twelfth grade participated in this event. Between the four-round Swiss system non-rated tournament and the awards ceremony, participants played a bughouse tournament.
Friday, May 13, was the last Denton High School chess club meeting for spring semester 2011. There was food, bughouse, and chess.
There are now 10 advance entries for the May 14, 2011 tournament at North Branch Library. More are expected by mail. Postmarked by May 7 gets the early entry fee price of $10! Form for entering is at the Denton High School Chess Club Web site. Goals for the 2011-2012 school year were discussed. Then elections were held. The only contested office was for President. Vice President, Secretary, and Treasurer were elected by acclamation.
Dr. Alexey Root (me!) had students try the following Bruce Pandolfini problems: White: Ke6 and Qe2 vs. Black: Ke8 mate in 2, White to move. Then White: Ke6 and Re2 vs. Black: Ke8 mate in 3, also White to move. Then I showed the YouTube video where Pandolfini explains how to solve these type of problems (Chess Now, Episode 41, about 19 minutes into the episode.)
