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For the entire championship game, played on chess set featuring characters from the television show ‘‘The Simpsons,” 8-year-old Evan Bearman, also a second-grader, coached his two peers.

The serious yet friendly game is part of Bel Pre Elementary School’s Chess Club, an after-school activity partly funded by the Parent Teacher Association to teach students about strategy, making good decisions and good sportsmanship.

‘‘We knew it was something for high-order thinking skills,” said Kristin O’Neil, one of the teachers in charge of the club. ‘‘I think that they definitely do grow as thinkers and become more self-confident.”

The club, which is made up of first- and second-graders, was started this year with the intention of getting a small group of students involved. But to the teachers’ and principal’s surprise, parents of 32 students showed interest and two biweekly groups were formed. The teachers also are paid a stipend through The Professional Learning Communities Institute, a Montgomery County Public Schools program that provides money for leadership opportunities in the elementary schools.

‘‘It’s been great,” O’Neil said. ‘‘We’ve been overwhelmed with interest [from the] kids.”

O’Neil, a special education teacher at Bel Pre, developed the idea for a chess club with her husband and second-grade teacher at the school, Michael O’Neil. Michael O’Neil said he began playing chess a year after a Thanksgiving get-together with family. He brought his chess board to school one day while he taught in North Carolina and the kids all gathered around, some seeing chess played for the first time.

Michael O’Neil said a lesson plan for the club was formulated to teach children about strategy, as well as socialization.

‘‘It’s nice to be able to hang out with children in a social setting [while they’re] learning,” he said.

While the teachers have fun interacting with the students after school, the students say they’ve learned a lot from Chess Club, as well.

First-grader Sam Rafidi, 7, was playing another first-grader Panashe Moyo when Moyo captured his queen.

‘‘Oh no!” he cried out, looking very disappointed that he hadn’t noticed the opponent’s opportunity to strike. But Rafidi didn’t dwell on the setback and moved forward.

‘‘I learn good sportsmanship and good manners and to always say nice things to one another,” he said about Chess Club.

Principal Carmen van Zutphen said she was elated to hear that teachers wanted to start a chess club at her school. She said she thought of the idea about four years ago, but had not figured out a way to get it done during the school day or how to fund it.

Besides the sportsmanship and strategic thinking the game provides, van Zutphen said she loves the way chess forces players to think with foresight.

‘‘It makes you think out of the box,” she said. ‘‘It’s like life. You have new challenges and barriers that block where you want to go, and you have to [figure out] how to overcome that barrier. It’s a benefit if you win or not.”

The concept of chess relating to life is something other Montgomery County educators have brought to the classroom. For example, Fernando Moreno, a counselor at Broad Acres Elementary School, has used chess in his teaching and counseling routine for years. He’s even written a book titled ‘‘Teaching Life Skills Through Chess.”

‘‘Playing [chess] will give you a lot of tools to relate it to life situations,” he said. ‘‘When to take the risk, when not too, when you are in control, when you are not in control.”

He said he teaches his students to think before they take action and remember how others will react to their own moves, similar to the way players in chess must foresee what the other player will do once they move their chess pieces.

At Board Acres, chess has been such an integral part of development that every student is required to learn the game and take one session during their recess time. The students are even going to compete in a school tournament against Oak View Elementary School on May 24.

Oak View is one of the schools that will receive the Chess in Maryland Schools grant for the next school year.

Some other elementary schools with chess programs in the county include Strathmore, Olney, College Gardens, Stonegate and Laytonsville elementary schools.

Rachel Franklin, a parent of first-grader Raphael, who is part of the Chess Club, said she likes how happy her son gets about the club and how he’s learned to be less of a sore loser.

‘‘I think it’s fantastic because my son was an atrocious loser,” Franklin said referring to her son’s sportsmanship before learning chess. ‘‘I asked him yesterday, ‘What did you say to opponents?’ and he said, ‘I always say great job even when I lose.’ That’s very important when you play one-on-one like that,” she said.

To Learn More

The Maryland State Department of Education now offers ‘‘Chess in Maryland Schools,” a program which offers grants to public schools to support their own chess programs before or after school, during the academic day, or during the summer. Each school could receive up to $10,000 a year. Schools that have been awarded the grant will be able to start the chess programs in the summer and fall of 2007. For more information about the Chess in Maryland Schools program call 410-767-0034 or visit http:⁄⁄marylandpublicschools.org.