The MiniChess program was developed over years of teaching chess to “entry phase” learners (5 to 9 years of age) as part of the school curriculum. It has already been used on a trial basis, with great success, at a number of schools in SA. It is organized into structured lessons, with detailed lesson plans in the Teacher's Manuals and attractive Project Books for the learners. The program uses tri
ed and tested methods for teaching through play, including the use of so-called "MiniChess" games. The learning process is broken down into small steps, building confidence while keeping it fun, and is in line with the skills level of the young child at that specific age, eg. colouring, cut and paste, form recognition, simple pattern recognition, a little bit of writing, etc. The program consists of 4 levels (level1/R, level2 and level3), each level accommodating the continual development of skills and capacity as the child grows. The program continually links chess concepts with maths-, science- and life skills. Marisa van der Merwe developed the award-winning educational program, MiniChessTM, over years of working her passion: early childhood development. She won the Shoprite Checkers Women of the Year Award 2012 (Category: Education), participated in the Women in the World Summit 2013 in New York and also presented at the London Chess & Education conference (December 2013) as well as the ACEI’s Poster-presentation in Vancouver (April 2014)
In 2014 Marisa established a MiniChess small-business structure, empowering individuals to run the program inside their own communities, while creating jobs en nurturing entrepreneurship
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