The Early Learning Chess At-Home Program is made possible through the partnership of WSA of Head Start and ECEAP and the Boeing Company Global Engagement Grant. The goal of the Early Learning Chess Program is to empower educators and parents–that may have zero chess knowledge–to facilitate fun chess activities to help 3, 4, and 5 year old children prepare for kindergarten.

In 2017, the Executive Director of WSA and the CEO of Chess4Life met to discuss the possibility of chess helping prepare pre-school aged children for kindergarten. That meeting led to a pilot at a few Early Learning Centers and showed promising results. In 2018, WSA applied for a Boeing Global Engagement Grant to help fund the Early Learning Chess program in the classrooms to bring the benefits to more children. Thanks to Boeing’s generous grant, the Early Learning Chess Program was funded for both 2019 and 2020 serving hundreds of Head Start and ECEAP students in Washington State.

We are so grateful that Boeing has again awarded WSA a Boeing Global Engagement Grant to fund the program in 2021. Due to the Covid pandemic, the program was redesigned using the proven activities of the previous two years to be implemented in the home by parents, guardians, and even older siblings. Through simple, fun chess activities children will learn basic math, social emotional skills, problem solving, and critical thinking.