Chess for Nephews

One of my young nephews has developed an early fascination with our beloved game. Although he does not yet even know the castling and en passant rules, he has an innate instinct for moving pieces to good squares. His Grandma has recently ordered a couple of children's beginner books by GM Murray Chandler from Amazon, and while they are an excellent introduction to tactics, even these are a little advanced for him just yet.

So, I want to formulate a set of simple rules that will take him from 'knowing how the pieces move' to the point where he can start to appreciate some theory.

1. Knight = 3 pawns. Bishop = 3 pawns. Rook = 5 pawns. Queen = 9 pawns.
   
2. Don't move more than 2 pawns before both Knights and at least 1 Bishop have moved.
3. Look for pieces that are unprotected and attack them.
4. Try to occupy the 4 squares in the centre of the board with pawns and Knights.

If he thinks about these things at each move, we can later give some more rules when none of these can be applied. Hopefully this will lead to questions such as "but how do I win the game?" when we can start to demonstrate basic checkmating positions, and from there simple tactics - how many times is a piece attacked? how many times is it defended?

It truly is an ocean from which a gnat may drink and in which an elephant can bathe; the trick is to find a path into it which will maintain his interest without it overwhelming or daunting him. I hope these rules are simple enough without ingraining too many bad habits, the key at this stage is to make pushing wood enjoyable while fostering an understanding of why each move is being made.