Chess Wizards is a national PK – 8 chess education program. Our mission is to make learning chess fun and exciting for kids – and our classes are now available online! We’ve adapted some of our most popular activities in the physical classroom to fit the digital one. These include puzzles, tournaments, blitz games – even chess variation games! Chess Wizards Online is designed to be an enjoyable and valuable experience for our students, even after they can finally go back to their regular classes.
When you register, you’ll pick a day, time slot, and experience level that works best for your family. Our administrative staff will send you information on how to get your technology set up to participate in the class. One of our amazing Chess Wizards instructors will lead each class of up to six students. Kids will learn at least one chess theme each class, with puzzles and exercises to reinforce each concept, then play each other under the instructor’s coaching and supervision.
To register, click
here.
For determining your child’s skill level, click
here (IMPORTANT!).
For help on getting your technology set up, click
here.
For more information on our Chess Wizards, click
here.
For our safety and privacy measures, click
here.
First, you’ll need to sign up (
click here!). You’ll pick a day, time slot, and your child’s experience level. Our administrative staff will send you information on how to get your technology set up to participate in the class.
To register, click
here.
For determining your child’s skill level, click
here (IMPORTANT!).
For help on getting your technology set up, click
here.
For more information on our Chess Wizards, click
here.
For our safety and privacy measures, click
here.
We encourage all parents to register at least 24 hours before the start of the class. This will give our administrative staff time to ensure that your child is properly grouped before the class starts. All groupings take place within 24 hours of the classes starting. So, if you register for the class on the same day of the class then we wouldn't be able to add your child to the class because the groups would've already been formed and the meeting links would've already been sent out.
Whether your child is brand new to chess, or a seasoned Chess Wizard, we have classes that will be fun and challenging. It’s important that you pick an experience level that best fits your child – too easy, and your child will be bored, too hard, and they will be frustrated.
We’ve put together a quiz to help you find the right class for you, and you can check out our
table.
Currently we use
ChessKid.com, along with
Zoom Meetings. We know there has been some negative press about Zoom lately, and these stories typically relate to users not utilizing all of the safety measures built into the platform. For more information on how we secure our classes, click
here.
No! We will sign you up for
ChessKid.com. Once you register with us, we will send you a username and password that you can use to access your ChessKid.com account.
Prior to the beginning of the class, you will receive an email with Zoom Meeting link for your upcoming class session. For safety, you must download, set up, and sign into the app – you cannot log into our classes from your web browser.
If you’re having trouble, please check out our tutorial
here.
Our experience has been created for the laptop or desktop computer experience. For best results, we recommend not using a tablet or mobile device.
Our top priority is to ensure your children’s safety during each of our sessions. We have taken the following steps:
• All Zoom settings have been specifically adjusted to safe guard our online classes
• Only invited parents can participate. No one can get the link unless a parent who has registered forwards their invitation to someone else, which is against our policy. See below for our safeguards on preventing this from happening.
• No one is able to join the meeting prior to our host joining.
• Once the class begins, the meeting is locked and no one else that can join the meeting.
• Parents are required to register for the meeting in the app; this tracks your IP address.
• All children are put into a waiting room prior to the class, then our wizards individually check participants' video and audio settings prior to letting each child into the class one by one to ensure only registered students are allowed in.
• All meetings are recorded and a copy is saved, for safety and internal training purposes only.
• Our maximum instructor:student ratio is 1:6, which allows us to monitor each child's activity.
• All classes are led by our best Chess Wizards instructors from around the country, with years of experience making chess fun. Each instructor is trained on quickly troubleshooting all of the most common setup and technical issues.
If you are more than 15 minutes late for a scheduled class, then you would need to get in touch with our Customer Service department so they can reschedule you for a different session. You paid for an hour – we want you to get your money’s worth! If you are less than 15 minutes late, you can still get in touch with a customer service representative and they will attempt to connect you.
Please understand that it might take a few minutes for someone to connect you… if you’re running late, there are always other classes you can join.
Our policy is one child, per device. We’d like each student to have the best experience possible, which isn’t possible with two students jostling for attention and control on the same computer. It’s totally cool for another student to watch – they just cannot interact with the rest of the class.
You can say hello to the when you sign in and you’re helping your child get set up and logged in. During the actual class, we ask that you not be on screen and not participate, as this would distract the other students. Of course, you can watch off screen and talk to your child off screen, but we ask that you not engage with any of the other children, and not distract your child from the class. Thank you!
If you are experiencing technical difficulties, or a need to reschedule for another reason, you will only be able to reschedule your class once. If you will not be able to attend a class, we do ask that you try to notify us in advance so we can make the necessary adjustments and open your spot to another student.
When you register, you must select your child’s skill level. The instructor will start the class with some chess puzzles at their skill level, and determine which topic will be most beneficial for the day. We typically focus on one or two main concepts per class – these can cover the whole range of chess knowledge, like tactics, strategy, openings, endgames, checkmate patterns, and thinking ahead.
Only our best, most experienced Chess Wizards instructors are eligible to teach online classes, and each of them is qualified to teach a great class at each of our chess levels. It is possible depending on the type of registration that you opt to sign up for, but is not always guaranteed. Please reach out to our customer service team to find out more information!
If you find that your child is too inexperienced, or too advanced, for the skill level you registered them for, please notify us and we will make the changes on our end. In changing the skill level, the scheduled time may also change.
You’re not locked into any one skill level when you register – you can always register for a different skill level each class, or level up your student when they’re ready.
Currently we are scheduling all of our classes in Eastern Standard Time to avoid any confusion in our administrative process. We’re a national program, and it’s easy to get things confused! Here is a helpful tool to help you with conversions from your local time:
https://www.worldtimebuddy.com/The cost of a class is $13.00 and they are 1 hour long. You can see our range of classes
here.
We do offer private lessons, but to craft an experience that fits your goals, we’ll need more information from you first. Please fill our
Private Classes Questionnaire, and someone from our admin team will reach out to you to take the process further. Feel free to reach out to us – we respond to each query in the order it comes to us. Siblings are welcome to our private lessons. Cost will vary depending on the expertise needed to fit the experience you’re looking for.
Just scroll down to end of our
homepage and you will be able to see the full schedule. Please note that all classes are listed in Eastern Standard Time!
You will only be charged after you have confirmed the day, time, and skill level of your class, but once you do, payments are final and will not be refunded. We are happy to give you a credit for a future class.
Absolutely. It’s important to us that you and your child have a great experience with our class and we want you to be happy you registered. If you did not have a good experience with the content of the class, we’ll ask you to fill out our feedback survey and first try to reschedule you for a class or an instructor that better fits your needs.
In the unlikely event an instructor or student violates our Chess Wizards Online! Instructor or Student Code of Conducts, we will ask for your feedback and be happy to refund you if you are uncomfortable rescheduling.
If a class is canceled due to a technical issue on our end, we will offer you credit towards a future class.
Please check out our Student and Instructor Code of Conduct here.
Please check out our technical setup tips here.
Please send us your feedback - good, bad, or amazing - using this survey.
We will provide you with credit through a gift card to use when registering for the classes online. If you don’t want to use these for online classes, these gift cards will be valid for any time during the 2020-2021 school year. To apply the credit and register for online classes, you need to create your profile on
https://chesswizards.jumbula.com/, select the classes you'd like your child to attend and proceed to the payment. Before the checkout, you will have the option to enter your Gift Certificate number for the credit to be applied.
Yes! After each class, a homework packet relating to the lesson taught will be sent to your email address so that your child can practice what they learned and be even better prepared to crush you in your next game together.
As often as you can! Practice makes perfect, and chess is one of the few ‘sophisticated’ skill games where a 6 year old can crush an otherwise highly functioning adult on an even playing field. It’s also a great way to spend some time when you’re stuck at home because of a global pandemic – in case you were running out of ideas.
There are all kinds of ways for players of unequal skill levels to have fun. Here are some ideas:
• Play with a handicap – the stronger player starts down a Queen. Play until the less experienced player wins. Then start without the Kingside Rook. Then the Queenside Rook. Then do the same with Bishop > Knight > Pawn (the f file pawn is a particularly tough one to start without).
• Play Continuous Chess – the first player gets one move, the second player gets two, then 3, then 4, and so on. You can capture the King in this game to win.
• Play Super Hero Chess – Same as above, but the stronger player gets one move per turn, while the weaker player gets two. If this makes the game lopsided in the other direction, you can adjust this by using tokens, like the Jokers from a deck of cards – give the weaker player a certain number of tokens which they can use to take a two-move turn.
-Using 2-move tokens with experienced, similar-level players can be very exciting, also – it adds a whole new element to the game!
Since the return date for kids going back to school is so fluid right now, it’s hard to say. We’re talking to principals and coordinators during the shut-down, and trying to resume classes as soon as possible. Either Chess Wizards or the school or organization you registered with will be sending out more information as soon as it is available.
We encourage parents to register at least 24 hours before the start of the class. This will give our administrative staff enough time to ensure that all the necessary set up has been completed for your child's upcoming class.