USA Chess and Video Game Design Camps

USA Chess and Video Game Design Camps offers chess lessons, chess instruction, and competitive chess play along with video game design activities. Campers spend time learning coding skills and creating and programming a unique video game using tools such as Minecraft, Game Maker, Kodu, and Scratch. Chess activities include classroom lessons, practice and play against other students and instructors, computer tutorials, worksheets, stories, and historical games, and the final day of camp features a chess graduation day ceremony.

• Schedule: Typical chess program day for half-day campers consists of three hours, with two one-hour classroom lessons and one hour of practice, and all-day campers follow the same schedule structure.

Instructors are selected by USA Chess for their ability to make chess fun and teach the game to players of all levels, and the staff is comprised of hand-picked children's chess instructors in North America who go through in-person meetings, interviews, classroom observation, and thorough background checks. The program states that its mission is to help develop critical thinking skills and improve creativity, which it connects to the STEM fields of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. Classroom size for the chess program averages 12–15 campers, groupings are based on each camper's chess-playing ability, and all necessary equipment is provided. All chess campers receive a chess set, notation book, T-shirt, trophy, a chessboard and pieces, and a folder of work completed during the week, and the final day of camp is Graduation Day when each camper is called forward to receive a trophy and a certificate of achievement. Active Learning and USA Chess also run chess enrichment programs for schools that want to start an after-school or before-school chess club or other chess activity.

Last updated May 27, 2026.