craftgrrl | Help with chess set (Reply)

So, my 6 year old nephew asked for a chess set (and lessons) for Christmas this year. Yes, he's brilliant. We love him.

Anyway, I want to make him a chess set, because I'm making all my gifts this year.

I thought about buying wooden "people" pieces and painting them to look like chess pieces, but I can't find any horses for the knights. So, now I'm thinking about either carving the horses myself (time consuming and potentially dangerous as I haven't done any wood-carving in about 15 years), or re-doing the whole idea and making all the pieces out of sculpey (which would be time-consuming, but maybe worth the trouble as there would be far less blood loss involved).

Another option is to buy a set of pieces and just make the board.

Requirements:
Durable material-- he's 6 and lives in a family with 3 other children. I expect multiple pieces to end up underfoot, chewed on, thrown, etc.
I can make them in different colors, either by painting or using different colored materials.
Fast, easy to make. I don't have 100 hours between now and Christmas to make the pieces, so the less time-consuming, the better.
Magentizable-- I'm going to paint the board over either a piece of sheet metal or magnetic paint and use magnets on the bases of the pieces, so it will be easier to have them stick to the board and not shift around.

Help? Anyone have any suggestions? My main hang-up right now is the knights-- I could make do with the people pieces I bought, if I had some way of getting four wooden horse heads.