Customer Reviews

Dinosaur Chess: Learn to Play

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I have more to say about this great program. I tried out 3 childrens/beginners chess programs on my 5-year old daughter:
1. Maurice Ashley Teaches Chess
2. Fritz and Chesster 1 & 2
3. Dinosaur Chess

The first 2 programs were written for older children and were too difficult for my daughter to grasp. Maurice Ashley Teaches Chess is for beginners ages pre-teen to adult (10+). It's an excellent piece of software, but my daughter can't read just yet so it is way above her head. If I sit next to her and guide her through the program's mini-games and activities she can pick things up, but I definitely have to sit down next to her and navigate through it the whole time. The Fritz and Chesster series are also excellent chess software for kids. But even Part I is too advanced for my 5-year old. It targets children ages 8-13, and it really does not teach chess in a pedagogical way. One has to wade through a long narrative and some non-chess related activities to learn the game of chess.

Dinosaur Chess targets 4-7 year olds and teaches the game of chess in a standard pedagogical way, where chess knowledge is presented in bite-sized portions from the basic building blocks to the most complicated concepts. In addition, all of the mini-games and activities are directly related to chess. Most importantly, my daughter can go through the chess lessons without me being present. Dinosaur chess is the best chess software for younger kids.

Dadi Jonnson has written a splendid review on Dinosaur Chess on ChessOK Cafe that you should look up and read.

My daughter, who is six-years old, seemed to like Chester, but she LOVES Dinosaur Chess. The lesson plans are very well designed and the exercises are magnificently creative. Let me give you an example: in order to teach how the knight moves an exercise entails little mice that can eat you up, so you better move fast to the square marked with an X. Super!

What makes this chess software different from others like Chessmaster is in its ability to gradually improve play strength as the student gets better. This is a very tricky problem. In other chess programs the chess engine either plays very strongly or very weakly. In Dinosaur Chess, while its internal chess engine gets calibrated for different labels, it adds another dimension to adjust strength: certain chess pieces are missing on the opponent's side depending on the level.

Dinosaur Chess is the best chess software for children ages 4-7. It is much better than the Fritz and Chesster CD's for this age group. Dadi Jonnson wrote a splended review on this piece of software so I won't go into it in depth.

But I will say that I've tried several childrens/beginners chess programs with my 5-year old daughter:
1. Maurice Ashley Teaches Chess
2. Fritz and Chesster parts #1 and #2.
3. Dinosaur Chess
Dinosaur chess was by far the best program for my daughter. While using the other 2 programs I had to repeatedly guide my daughter through the mini-games and activities (and the narrative in the case of the Fritz and Chesster) because Maurice Ashley and Fritz and Chesster programs were above my daughter's head. Dinosaur Chess is written directly for my daughter's age range.

GREAT resource - but it would not download on three computers that we have at home and in my classroom... Newest model with Windows 7 XP - did the trick - Kids love it - and so do I ... I'm learning right along with them !

This DVD is good for teaching kids ( 4 to 6 year old) how to play chess. It reiterates the concepts of how to move pieces in a fun way and adults who like to learn chess would also be able to use this without being puzzled.

I brought it for my daughter who is 4 years and 3 months old, and frankly she does not like chess very much. I do not force her to play this. But when she is not tired she likes to plays this. She gets scared on certain tasks ( the raptors will eat you if you do not play fast and capture the pieces with the Rook quickly) and stops playing and needs my help.

I think she is way too young to understand everything and she will eventually like it. But as far as the program goes this fundamentally teaches kids from 4 to 6 years old chess in a very good format...MUCH BETTER THAN CHESSTER( maybe this is for older kids- has too much fluff in it ( too much walking around).I had brought CHESSTER too)

She understands much better how the pieces move with the Dinosaur program than me trying to teach her personally with the moves of the pieces on a chess board.

I will definelty recommend it to Parents trying to teach kids..This is exactly what i was looking for to teach kids how to play chess.

Only Cons were-

1. Not sure if it supports Vista /Windows 7
2. Sometimes eventhough you place the Knights on the right squares it tells me that i have placed it incorrectly. I just shutdown the program and start it again and it works fine not giving me that problem again. ( maybe has to do with some setup).

Dinosaur Chess will not properly load or work completely with any operating system newer than Windows XP. This product has not been up-dated.