Looking for an inexpensive (and fun) way to teach students much needed critical thinking and analysis skills, as well as history, math, and reading? Introduce them to one of the world's oldest games: chess. First Move, a 6-year-old Seattle-based organization that has helped put chess in almost 20,000 second and third grade classrooms in 27 states, provides a two-year curriculum to make it easy for educators.

First Move's executive director, Wendi Fischer, takes on a persona called "The Chess Lady" to give students lessons in how to play the game. Students also learn the medieval origins of chess—everything from the role of the church and how bishops advised the kings and queens to how pawns represent the historical (and expendable) peasants. Actually playing the game then helps students develop the ability to focus and think ahead, and reinforces math concepts like coordinates and quadrants.