Springport Spartans Chess Club

05/27/2026

Want to keep your students Chess skills sharp over our Summer Break?? Do they have a puzzle book yet?? These are GREAT for car rides and are an incredible resource for perfecting pattern recognition and tactical awareness/board vision. I am attaching a link to one of my favorites but there are many very good ones. Just bring a pencil and draw the lines to complete the puzzles.

The one linked is for my Elementary Players but there is another edition for the Middle/High Schoolers as well. Just click through the link and find it!

Any student who can complete a puzzle book and bring it in to show me after break gets a special candy surprise!!! 😎🥳

THE ULTIMATE CHESS PUZZLE BOOK FOR BEGINNERS: 439 Tactics & Checkmates to Progress in Chess

05/20/2026

As we have now completed our first session of Chess Club and will be returning after Summer Break. If your student plays on Chesscom and hasn't already added themselves or requested to join our Club Group on the site please do so to help me further track progress and if we can get enough in the group I may be able to run a fun online tournament at some point throughout the summer. Click the invite link below or search our name in the clubs section. :)

https://www.chess.com/club/springport-spartans-chess-club/join/1562fa?utm_campaign=club_invite_link&utm_source=chesscom&utm_medium

05/18/2026

We wrapped up our last day of Chess Club for the school year today with a Pizza Party! We played some casual games without and had a group discussion on what changes/improvements the kids hoped we could make for after Summer Break.

More teaching with puzzles and learning of different openings and gambits was the most popular! So therefore I will be taking time this summer to come up with more and improved lesson plans.

Improvements or areas of concern were noted as the class being quite large and there being a number of students who had less of an interest in Chess but more hanging out with their friends. So with that we will be trying to structure the class more to emphasize we are a Chess Club and less of a 'hangout'.

Several of the students are VERY eager to start getting deeper into the competitive side and we will definitely be getting right into that once we return.

I have attached the "Wrap-Up" I sent home for parents today for those that went home after Field Day and missed club today. Please read through it if you haven't already.

Thank you for a great 3 months and see you shortly after Summer Break! I am INCREDIBLY proud of the progress every one of the kids has made!

Stay tuned and follow for more updates!!

05/17/2026

Tomorrow is our LAST day of Chess Club before school gets out for the summer!!

To celebrate all of our achievements and improvements we made in just 3 short months the kids have earned a Pizza Party!!

We have also been approved for the space starting up shortly after break!

We will be doing a casual club meeting and just having a group discussion on what they want to see after break and ideas or improvements we can make to the club to keep our massive upward trajectory! I will be encouraging every student to participate in this discussion.

Many studies on Chess in schools has been linked to improved test scores in Reading and Math, as well as improved ability to regulate emotions and behavioral/social abilities in class and every day life.

I would LOVE to hear from any parents on if they saw any positive affects they think may be attributed to the learning and improvement in our Chess Program. This data could be used to present to the Board to possibly help get us some more support and improve our growing club even more! Doesn’t have to be anything fancy even just a short note. Submit on FB/Text/Email if possible. Thanks!

05/12/2026

Our Chess Tournament was a great success today! I got to see just how much all of the kids have improved this year and all players showed great sportsmanship!

Chess can be a very emotional game as there is going to either be one winner or one loser in a match unless a draw occurs. The biggest part of scholastic chess is being able to take your wins and losses humbly while not taking it to heart. You either win or you learn.

The kids did a phenomenal job of keeping their cool and asking me for help if they had any questions during their games.

I am incredibly proud of all they have accomplished in such a short amount of time.

We had 4 sections of 8 students all competing for the glorious treats with 4 coming out on top! King Size Reese's & Air Heads were quite the motivators haha!!

Gunnar, Anthony, Lillian, and Lincoln all took first place in their sections.

Reminder: Next week is our LAST Chess Club of the school year!

05/10/2026

Hi everyone! We have another fun casual unrated tournament for the kids tomorrow! Next week will mark our 3rd month of Chess Club! I will be doing treats and prizes for all participants and extra big ones for those who win their sections! We have spent the past few weeks improving our positional chess play and getting the students more ready for competitive play.

This is going to be a fun event and the kids always seem to have a blast playing these "High Candy Stakes" games with these formats. 😅😅

We may run a couple of minutes over our normal club release time and parents are more than welcome to pop in and see us finishing up.

I am excited to see everyone tomorrow and see how much we've grown over the last two months since our last tournament!!

05/04/2026

Don't forget Chess Club is tomorrow!! For my beginners we will be going a little more into notation and what will be required of you during a tournament.

For my intermediate and advanced students we are going to be diving a bit deeper into Middle Game ideas and principles that can help turn small advantages into positional strengths making all of the moves easier when heading into the endgame!😎

04/27/2026

Tomorrow is Chess Club!! We are going to be moving forward with learning more professional tournament preparation and requirements. We will be going over 'Chess Notation' and explaining how at a Ranked Professional Event it is required for you to record yours and your opponents moves during the game.

I will be teaching the different abbreviations for moves and showing students how to properly record their moves during a ranked game.

This can also be great for being able to replay a game and analyze errors or where you could have made a different or better move.

04/20/2026

Chess club today after school!! Today we will be doing a refresher on en passant and opening principles for my beginners. I will be going around and spectating games to make sure we are controlling the center, developing our minor pieces, and castling as soon as possible like we have been focusing on all along.

For my more advanced and intermediate students we are going to be going through some puzzles and getting into the basics of prophylaxis in chess. Learning that defending a weakness before your opponent can exploit it can halt their plans and also bolster your future attack.

04/13/2026

Chess Club today after school as normal! Today my beginners are going to get more familiar with the strange looking pawn move "En Passant" that can occur once your pawn has progressed one square past the center and the opponent pushes a pawn 2 squares where they are aligned adjacent from each other leading to a diagonal capture.

For my more advanced players we will be reviewing some of their Online games and also talking about our "Middlegame Checklist" as well as comparing our Chess Pieces to a spiders web and how they should be all interconnected to form one big efficient net used to trap our opponents.

We are working closer and closer every day to getting the kids ready for competitive competition play and I will be releasing more information as we get to that point!

See you all soon!! :)