← Lessons4

Step 4: Special Rules & Draws · about 25 min

Pawn Promotion

🖨 Worksheet🔑 Answer key🖨 Easy-reading worksheet

Goal: Kids promote a pawn that reaches the last row, usually to a queen.

You need: One board and set per pair · Spare queens, or an upside-down rook to stand in for one

1 · Teach it (15 min)

Read these out loud, or put them in your own words. Show each board on screen or set it up on a demo board.

  1. 1.“Remember the pawn's big dream? When a pawn reaches the very last row, it gets promoted. You take it off and put a new piece in its place.”

  2. 2.“You can pick a queen, rook, bishop or knight, of your own color. Almost always you pick the queen, because she's the strongest. That means you can have two queens, or even more!”

    👉 No spare queen? Use an upside-down rook and say it out loud: 'this is a queen'.

  3. 3.“A pawn can promote by moving forward, or by capturing onto the last row.”

  4. 4.“Pawns that nothing can stop are called passed pawns. Push them! A new queen usually wins the game.”

With younger kids: Make it a celebration: when a pawn promotes, the whole table says 'Hooray, a new queen!'
Watch for:
  • Forgetting to take the pawn off the board.
  • Thinking a pawn can promote to a king.

2 · Play it: Breakthrough (10 min)

Set up: White pawns on a5, b5 and c5. Black pawns on a7, b7 and c7. White moves first.

  1. Only pawns. Take turns.
  2. The first pawn to reach the other side wins.
  3. There's a secret winning trick for White. Can you find it? (Hint: sacrifice a pawn.)
  4. Swap colors and try again.

🎮 Kids with an iPad can also play this against the computer in student mode.

3 · Practice and pass check

On iPads, kids open Student → Step 4 → Pawn to Queen!. On paper, print the worksheet. A kid passes by getting 2 of 3 on the pass check. The pass code for this lesson is S4-L2-6S.

Practice (4) with answers

1.Promote your pawn. Draw an arrow or write the move.

abcdefgh

Move: e8=Q

2.Your pawn is blocked. Promote anyway! Draw an arrow or write the move.

abcdefgh

Move: dxe8=Q

3.Which piece can a pawn NOT promote to?

  • Queen
  • Knight
  • ✓King

4.Promote and give checkmate in one move. Draw an arrow or write the move.

abcdefgh

Move: e8=Q# or e8=R#

Pass check (3) with answers

1.Promote and give checkmate in one move. Draw an arrow or write the move.

abcdefgh

Move: a8=Q# or a8=R#

2.Can you have two queens at the same time?

  • ✓Yes, by promoting a pawn
  • No, only one

3.Which piece do players choose almost every time they promote?

  • Rook
  • ✓Queen
  • Bishop

Topic order based on: Chess for Children, Part 3 (castling, promotion, en passant). All wording is original.