I just stumbled across this board and thought I would mention how I am introducing my 5 & 6 year olds to chess.

I bought a Lego Chess CD game on Ebay. It is animated (cowboys vs. indians or Pirates fighting over buried treasure). Whenever a piece is captured one of several animated capture scenes plays. In the lower levels, you can put the curser on a piece and any other piece in it's path will start to quiver (and it shows all possible moves). Later, that "help" disappears. We can set the skill level (by percentage) so my kids can score victories. We have been slowly increasing the skill percentage as their skill improves. We know it is time to knock it up a few points when my son starts bragging about winning all three levels. My six year old absolutely loves this game! he is operating at about 45% skill level and is improving steadily. He knows how each piece moves and has been developing strategies. He was even illustrating the game to my five year old using jelly bellies at lunch (the pink one is the queen, of course - LOL!).

We have started buying this cd to give away as birthday gifts to his friends.

Lego's slogan: "Real Chess, Made Really Fun"

Definately!