Writing a chess magazine, for kids

Once upon a time, a chess teacher for kids in Thailand

I'm a chess club for kid owner out of Thailand.

My thing is to make chess accessible and interesting for kids.

Among the frameworks and gimmicks we use, we decided to write a chess magazine.

A tough start

Like everything, we started quite experimental, trying out articles with simple design.

Okay, maybe a little crazy but eh, it's for kids!

We have an internal points/rewards system with which kids could buy it (the harder they train, the more rewards).

But the magazine item was of little interest for the kids.

How did we improve?

At the present day, we've reached magazine #13, it is very popular among kids, and it's very much about chess tactics and strategies, so I'd say it's a success.

Here are a few elements we learnt along the way:

More picture, less text ️

If we're going to have 5 years old and up like this magazine, text has got to be limited.

Create series with trial and error

Like everything, it is important to create content and test it.
I'd personally go through the magazine with my student and observe them as they browsed, to see which content excites them.
And of course, we'd keep and improve the popular ones.

Create a fantasy universe

Kids like to relate to fantasy stories, so we came up with different characters that will have their own traits

Keep it full of chess ️

One of the challenges is to make things fun while keeping as much chess learning as possible

Includes some gimmicks

As kids, we all liked these little toys or poster included in magazines. So, we created some stickers with chess advice as well as chess cards giving some extra power during fun chess variants games.

Make it accessible

We realized over time that it can't get popular if students don't use their tokens to buy it in the first place! We decided to publish it online for free, here: Happy Pawn’s Magazine – Happy Pawn Chess club in Bangkok

As well as giving it for free in each of our chess tournaments or camps to every participant.

Make it pretty

Special shoutout to our amazing designer, Ice, who kept improving in his craft not only in his designs, but as what's suitable for magazines!

Stay tuned for our next article about the cool stuff we do in our club!