The Periodic Table

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Activities

  • Find just about any type of periodic table you want in pdf form to print for your students at TheScience Geek’s site. 
  • Have students do the “Periodic Table” Magic Square. An check out “Finding the Moment of Inertia for the Magic Square” (doc) to delve into the theory of magic squares.
  • Try these Metal and Nonmetal Wordsearches. 
  • Do the “Getting to Know the Periodic Table” Worksheet. 
  • Have students make an “Element Brochure.” 
  • Use the periodic table to make “Element Windsocks.” 
  • Do this “Periodic Table Basics” Worksheet (pdf). 
  • Use this template to make “Periodic Table Cards” (pdf) of the common elements. 
  • Have students do this “Periodic Table” Crossword Puzzle (pdf). 
  • Play “Elements Bingo” by randomly selecting elements from a paper copy (pdf) of the periodic table, randomly selecting an element and calling out the name of the element while crossing it off the periodic table. Students mark the symbol of that element on their bingo cards (pdf). (This file has 36 prefilled cards.) 
  • Play Tom Lehrer’s “The Elements” song or show this Flash animation of the song by Mike Stanfill. 
  • Try this Discovery School “Science Hits” activity where students will listen to a recording of “The Elements” by Tom Lehrer (1960) and write their own song for recalling scientific information.
  • Abigail Freiberger provided this “Martian Periodic Table” (doc) activity using this (xls) table. 
  • “Arsenic and Old Lace: The Chemistry Connection” (doc) is a WebQuest that uses the old movie and has different students in a group act as chemist, doctor, historian, and reporter to produce a video for the class. An evaluation rubric is included. 
  • Do this “Elements” (pdf) crossword puzzle with answers. 
  • Or have students do this “Elements and the Periodic Table” (pdf) crossword puzzle.
  • Try this “Periodic Tables Online” (pdf) activity. 
  • “The Periodic Table of Elements” is Teacher’s Domain (you must sign up for free) activity that includes an essay and scavenger hunt. 
  • Make learning the element symbols fun with “An Elemental Tale: The Gold Dust Kid” worksheet. 
  • Or try these “Element Riddles.” 
  • In “Element Clues” (pdf) students place “known” element cards (included) in the order of the periodic table and then figure out the identity of the “unknown” element cards by their properties. 
  • Show The World of Chemistry video, “A State of Matter,” and have students answer the questions on this “World of Chemistry: The Periodic Table” (pdf) worksheet. 
  • Try M. Horton’s “Element Hunt Project” (doc) where students collect as many pure elements as they can around the home and create a poster with them.
  • In the game Castle Mendeleev students explore the 18-room castle where each room in entirely made of one of the elements in the first three rows of the periodic table. Colleen Bennett of the NSTA Listserve supplied these teacher notes with the answers (doc) and, since the game is no longer online, I compiled this file (doc) of the game and this worksheet (doc) with a crossword puzzle.
  • This “Elements Database” has links to information about all the elements as well as a hangman game for the elements. Or try this “Periodic Table Quiz.”
  • In Mike Barondeau’s “Periodic Chart Spreadsheet” (doc) activity, student’s manipulate this spreadsheet (xls) to answer questions about the elements.
  • Show this PowerPoint “Teacher’s Guide to: Chemistry’s Periodic Table” that has been converted to a YouTube  video.
  • Have students watch the YouTube video “These Are the Elements” by David Newman. Lyrics and an mp3 download of the song are available by clicking “Show more” under the video.
  • During March Madness have students try Flinn Scientific’s “It’s Elementary-March Madness” (pdf) activity.

Labs

  • Test seven elements of your choice to determine if they are “Metals, Nonmetals, or Metaloids” in this Lab. 
  • Have students cut out the element cards and discover the 9 unknown elements in “The Mendeleev Lab of 1869.” 
  • Discover “Trends in the Periodic Table” with this Lab. 
  • Or try this “Periodic Trends” (doc) lab.
  • Do “Density As a Periodic Trend” Lab. 
  • Similar to the “Martian Periodic Table” activity, “The Alien Periodic Table Challenge,” (pdf) is a bit more creative. I have included a periodic table chart (doc) and these are the answers supplied by someone from “WIKI Answers” (doc). After the lab, follow-up with this “Alien Periodic Table Analysis” (pdf) using this PowerPoint (ppt).

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