Teaching western chess to a 6-year old (#293, Topic G)

When we parted company at Thanksgiving, our 6-1/2-year-old granddaughter wanted me to teach her how to play western chess the next time we met, which was less than a month -- during the Christmas holidays. Earlier, I have taught her brother how to play the game; when we played, she was always with us, sitting quietly while watching. The fact that she wanted to learn now suggested that she felt she was ready. Western chess, because of two rather inexplicable moves, is more difficult to teach than Xiangqi (Chinese chess, which preceded western chess [or, using a term I coined, Queenqi]). The first such move is en passant, which, technically, is an imaginery move. (The dictionary describes it this way: "a method of capturing a pawn that, in making its first move of two squares, passes over a square [on an adjacent file] controlled by an opposing pawn. The opposing pawn has the right to capture it by advancing immediately to the square that was passed.") A pawn-capture move is difficult enough. (A pawn, on its first move, may move forward one or two squares; afterward, it may move forward only one square at a time -- except in capture, where it moves diagonally forward one square.) An en passant move is simply too much -- at least for a 6-1/2-year-old, in my view. The second such move is castling, which, technically, is not one move, but two moves -- moving two pieces, the King and a Rook, separately, though counting these two separate moves as one -- the logic is difficult to explain, at least to a 6-1/2-year-old. Still another move is queening -- a pawn moving to the last rank is promoted to any piece, generally to a Queen. Though the logic is equally elusive, at least its move is easy to understand. So I decided to introduce it after 3 or 4 games. In each game, I gave our granddaughter ample opportunity to move correctly -- and, later, to move correctly resulting in captures. We set the limit at one game per day (her older brother wanted, and got, equal time). Our granddaughter likes to write, draw, and keep score. On our western-chess contests, she has a 5:0 record against me. She certainly is a quick learner and plays well.