Further to my last post a while back, exciting news is in toyland this Toy Fair in February 2014. Chess, the beloved old game that does more for left brain and right brain thinking than most arts and sciences on their own... is getting some love.

A new educational math toy that is based on the centuries old game, and that has been designed by a group of incredibly clever math educators from top universities as MIT and Caltech, is coming onto the market to help young kids in the K-8 grades get more out of their math homework.

Yamie Chess, advised by a USA chess champion named Jennifer Shahade, has already won support from the leading chess expert Jeremy Silman who designed the Wizards chess game in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in the J. K. Rowling novel, and top mathematics PhDs from Harvard and University of Chicago.

And, this educational toy doesn't go on Apple ipad or Nintendo. It's an entirely traditional math learning aid, that isn't electronic and uses an interactive math book style, shaped as a comic, doubling up as a coloring in for STEM education. Sets of pencils and a traditional tournament sized classic chess set especially molded for little hands is integrated with the math comic, to get kids to connect and think about the math that underlies classic chess.

Reasonably priced at $24.99, Yamie Chess is made in America. More at https://www.yamiechess.com