To get kids learning, one math teacher gets them playing

Fourth-graders at Forest Lake Elementary are learning math skills and more from chess and cribbage.

By Ben Goessling, Star Tribune

Last update: November 26, 2007 - 3:44 PM

It's shortly after noon on a Tuesday at Forest Lake Elementary School, and a crowd is forming around fourth-grader Jessica Palomino.

She stares across at Christian Forster, anticipating his next moves as he tries an attack that could knock her out of the game. She counters, steadying herself while glancing at the players on either side as classmates wait to see what will happen next.

"You need vision to see how other people are going to think," she says. "There's a lot of strategy to this game."

This isn't on a playground at recess. It's in front of a chess board during math class.

The fourth-graders at Forest Lake Elementary are learning chess and cribbage -- and the computation and strategic thinking skills that go with them -- as part of a new program teachers hope will put lessons into practice and give students more constructive entertainment options at home.

"It's amazing how many of these kids never played Yahtzee or chess or cribbage," fourth-grade teacher Julie Larson said. "This is so much better than a video game. This is something they can do with their grandparents."

Larson and fellow fourth-grade teacher Jill Atchison started the program this year, bringing in parent volunteers every Friday to teach students chess and cribbage.

Now that the kids know how to play, they pull the games out whenever they have some free time at the end of their math session.

They're inadvertently practicing addition and multiplication when scoring a cribbage game. Chess brings a study of risk and reward strategies, especially in the four-way game that's become the class favorite.

But the benefits have gone beyond even what Larson expected.

She's been continually surprised by what her students say they get out of the games, like when Forster talks about learning how to predict outcomes and other students say they learn sports strategy from chess.

And the social interaction they get from the games, Larson said, is invaluable -- especially with video games such a strong presence at home and federal No Child Left Behind laws necessitating a greater focus on basic skills in the classroom.

"These games teach give and take. It's not that video games are bad, but they're not interacting when they play them," she said. "You're encouraged to make instruction geared toward those strands in tests where you have deficiencies. But kids have issues. You've got to be creative."

That's paying off outside the classroom, where some students are asking their parents for chess sets and teaching them how to play.

Larson, who doesn't know how to play chess herself, marvels at how quickly the kids are ready to share the game with adults.

She's even more impressed at what they're getting from each other.

"They're engaged," she said. "That's where learning takes place."

Ben Goessling • 651-298-1546

Ben Goessling • bgoessling@startribune.com

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