Italian Opening

The Italian opening is good for beginners and gives you a good start controlling the centre of the board and allowing you to castle. 

Cooking in Chess...

Forks Pins and Skewers... 

Fork - attacking 2 or more pieces at the same time.

Pin - when a piece is stuck because if they move the king will be in check. 

Skewer - king in front another piece is behind it.  Person attacking gains something of great of greater value.

This is a Pin...

Here is a useful website:  http://www.usefulchess.com/tactics/forkpin.htm

Are you like your star sign?

We went on a trip to the museum to the star lab and learnt about how our ancestors navigated the seas with the stars.  We saw all the different shapes of the constellations.  The reason we are learning about this is because this year is the Sestercentennial - 250 Years since the first landings of Europeans.  Tairawhiti was the actual first landing!

 

Here are some photos from the Museum.  A bit blurry but shows us in the star lab learning about our ancestors.

This was really interesting.  The constellations are right above us at certain times of the year.  One of the things wWe had a look at our star signs and did some writing about them.  We learnt was that they are named after Greek Gods and characters of the myths.  They also have personality types which we compared to ourselves to see if they were true!

Check out our blogs to see our writing and artwork!

Is there any other uses for knowing the star constellations?
What do you know about navigating and our first encounters?

Here is Miss McIntosh showing off our cool art! 

Chess update #2

Baileymate (a game to help them learn how to check and what pieces do what)

Have to put me in check 

Have to use big pieces and then the pawns 

Once you use the big pieces they are stuck 

If you leave one unprotected I take it 

En passant 

Only can do it on the pawns 

When a pawn crosses half way it deserves respect 

You have to give the pawn a chance to respect you by moving just one square to the pawn who is across half way 

If you choose to disrespect that pawn the pawn that has moved past half way can still take you by moving across the diagonal and taking the disrespecting pawn.

You can do it with every pawn on the board 

It must be the two pawns either side of the pawn who deserves respect 

It must happen straight after the pawn has been disrespected, the very next turn. 

Aurora Drama Programme Final Play

The Aurora Education Trust is an organisation that provides learning experiences to students who have talents in certain areas.  This year one of the projects was a Drama project that involved 7 days of researching, writing and performing a script about the first encounters in Turanganui. 22 students from 12 schools participated and did a great job working with each other and learning a lot about our history. 

Community leaders were involved and came in to talk, teach and work with the students around this topic.  

• Chris Green worked with us for 2 session on Drama techniques.
• Todd Sheridan worked with us on the first landing at Turanganui and the tragedy of those that were killed. 
• Kata Ngata worked with us on the story of Tupaia. 
• Albie Gibson from Turanganui Ararau provided cultural advice on the script. 

Here is the programme:

Link to the Herald Article

Chess Session #2 - Castling

Games are silent.

Revision: 

• Get out of check - move, block or capture the opponent.
• Ladder checkmate or lawnmower check.
• When you take a piece look at the value of it so that you aren't capturing the powerful pieces.
• When pawns get to the other side you can swap it for a more powerful piece.
• Who goes what colour - hands behind back and one person choses.  Next game swap over.

Chess is at least 4000 years old. En passant and Castling is a relatively new move.

Castling:

Is an important move.  Only move in chess that you can take 2 pieces and move them at the same time.

King side castle:

1. Kings pawn moves 2 spaces. 
2. Move your kings knight.
3. Move king 2 spaces right
4. Rook jumps over the king.

Castle by the 8th move. You cannot Castle if the king or rook have moved before in the game. 

"I must not Castle out of Check" - you must block it first then castle on next move.

"I must not castle into check".

"I must not castle through check"

You touch it you move it.

Never touch your opponent's pieces - if you touch it you capture it.

Computational Thinking: 

Binary - 0 = off 1 = on  Looking at Truth Tables to get the circuit going needs to be all on to work.

And Gates:  input and out put. And Gate for Checkmate:  Can we block?  Can we move out? Can you capture?  If all questions are true then it is checkmate. 

thanks Matuas! 

Chess lessons from the Eastern Knight Legacy

Today we were lucky to have Noble and Dan come to teach us the basics of chess.  The first of 8 lessons to get our skill up! 

Here's some things we learnt...  Practice up for next time! 

Chess:  letters across x-axis, numbers up y-axis

White on the right correct way to set up the board.

Notation of chess - co-ordinates

Pawns 1 - one square or 2 squares (First move only), cannot go backwards or sideways.  If it gets to the other side it can be promoted.  Can only capture on a diagonal. Pawns can capture all pieces. 

Rook 5 - straight lines cannot jump.

Knight 3 - L shapes 2 down one across any direction. But always L shape. Can Jump.

Bishop 3- diagonal only cannot jump. One on a black and one on a white square. Good idea to capture a bishop to have safe squares.

Queen 9 - Power - diagonals and straight lines.  As many as she wants.

King 0 - Mr Useless he can only move one square at a time. Needs to stay home.

If you call checkmate and it is not check mate then you have lost because it is not correct.

Practice the 2 rook chess move.