Hour Of Chess Week: February 24-28, 2020

The worldwide ChessKid spectacular is back! The Sixth "Hour of Chess Week" will return this February 24-28, 2020.

This back-to-school edition still gives you a chance to win 500 gold memberships for your entire school, which is valued at $5000 USD!

Once again, we will dedicate one full week to encouraging chess in schools (in every school) for at least one hour. We're borrowing from the KhanAcademy playbook (a website and organization whose efforts we greatly admire). 

(Signup is at the bottom of this article!)

This past fall we had more than 150 schools participate and this time we are shooting for more than 200. Help us make history!

"ChessKid's 'Hour of Chess Week' continues to grow and grow as teachers and administrators see what a positive, community-building experience it can be for a school," ChessKid CEO Carey Fan said. "We want all kids to have chess education be as standard as art and music education, and for at least one week, we hope to make that possible.

"We tried hard to make ChessKid take the mystery out of teaching chess so that any classroom or special area teacher can be confident to give the gift of chess!"

What Is Hour of Chess Week?

The Hour of Chess Week is a week dedicated to playing chess with everyone, anywhere in the world, for at least one hour. But specifically, ChessKid will be working with its major programs, largest and most active school districts, as well as promoting the efforts to as many worldwide schools to "try chess club at your school for one hour this week" and see if your kids love to play chess. We think they will! 

The project is open to existing ChessKid users or new users and there is NO COST.

When: Pick any hour 8 a.m.-5 p.m. your local time during the week of February 24-28, 2020.

Where: Your school. Kids can use any device -- including their own smartphone or tablet if approved by the school for that hour -- to play Fast Chess or Solve Puzzles, (teacher or coach's decision which one) for one hour. Existing ChessKid users can now also choose to host a live tournament in their online club!

Teachers, remember that we are integrated with Clever, so this makes it quick & easy for you to get ChessKid up and running with your school.

How: To get approval from your school's principal and/or district leaders, we recommend you contact them immediately upon resuming regular classroom activities when you go back to school. Any schools needing official documentation of the event can contact ChessKid staff at [email protected] with the email title "Hour of Chess Week." Reading this article and telling your school leaders how much you love the idea of chess in your school might be enough! 

Remember, there's no cost and there's some great prizes!

Who Can Participate?

Everyone! In fact, one of our most active school districts, Madison City Schools in Alabama, participated every year across the entire district. They usually get more than 2000 students from grades 1st-6th to participate in "Hour of Chess"! 

Just look at those stats from Madison City Schools Hour of Chess Week!

Ranae Bartlett, President of Madison City Board of Education and the Executive Director of the Madison City Chess League, had this to say about last year's event:

"Some teachers rotated students through centers, some paired novices up with experts, and some used an entire lab to play all at once!  One size does not fit all, but all enjoyed playing a game of chess with their friends and peers.

Madison City also produced a flyer for all of their schools. It links teachers to ChessKid.com and also to the ChessKid introductory chess video to show novice students before the Hour of Chess. The flyer also included a few how-to’s so students and teachers knew how to work with the correct technology and the program efficiently.

This time around, we have an improvement! We will be sending out a series of introductory lesson videos for teachers to cycle through with their novice students throughout the preceding few weeks. We feel that would better prepare them for their first game of chess and make the experience even better!

Why An Hour Of Chess?

Chess is recognized universally as one of the most effective ways to bring fun into the classroom, yet still do something that encourages critical thinking skills, increases focus and otherwise helps with the cognitive development of students.

Simply put: We believe every school should have and would benefit from having a regular chess club.

Why is ChessKid doing this?

We want to help you grow chess in your area! In fact, we're giving away prizes to prove it! All schools that sign up with their planned time of participation during the week of February 24-28, 2020 will be registered in a drawing to win one year free of ChessKid Gold Membership access for every kid in their school. (Up to 500 Gold Memberships -- a $5000 USD value). Only one school will win.

In addition, ChessKid will give away three more prize packages of 20 gold memberships (a $700 USD value) chosen from among all programs (school or homeschool) who share a photo of their chess class and tag ChessKidcom on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram! We will share and promote the best photos and announce the three winners (subjectively chosen as our three favorite photos) to each receive these 20 gold membership packages!

Sign up today!

Thank you for helping to grow chess in your school and district! Questions on the process? Email [email protected] with the subject line: Hour of Chess Week!