Teaching the Periodic Table

Thursday, November 1, 2012


Both of my sons will be or are currently studying chemistry.  We are going to do a unit together to cover the periodic table.  I especially want to do this with my high school age son before we get into the nitty gritty of chemical formulas and the like.  I am hoping to capture his interest this way and then move into the harder material.

Here are a few of the resources we will be using:


The Mystery of the Periodic Table (Living History Library)  We have read this book before when the kids were much younger.  It got too technical at the end for their ages back then.  We are going to try it again for a quick review.

Videos for each element! 



Worksheets to get familiar with the table

 The Periodic Table Game



The Elements: A Visual Exploration of Every Known Atom in the Universe

And just for some fun (we aren't going to do these, but I thought they were cute)...


This card


The Periodic Table in Cookie Form




Or How About Cupcakes????

5 comments:

dstb said...

Thanks for the reminder for the book The Mystery of the Periodic Table. We're doing Chemistry now (son 8th grade) and I started with a lapbook that I found on Homeschool Share (I think) that uses the kids book Fizz, Bubble, Flash. You don't really need to use the book or lapbook though. The idea is that we are studying the elements based upon their "family" (ie Metalloids). We then watch the videos for those elements and he chooses three to look up in the Elements book to write about. When we finish this, I am going to have him write a short paper explaining how/why elements are in the families they are and what attributes they share.

Love the cookies. May have to do that!

Thanks,
Sarah

Nicole said...

i love this!

Debbie said...

Sarah- That lapbook on Homeschool Share is one that I helped create! :-)

dstb said...

Debbie,

Well then I thank you for the lapbook! (That is too funny.)

I had intended to use it a couple of years ago, but the boys ended up taking an outside class. At the time, I put a sample of the lapbook together for myself. Now, I am letting my son use the already put together lapbook and having him just enter the information. It is a nice introduction to the families and learning about some of the elements.

I think once we are done with this, we may move on to Ellen McHenry's Elements. (Another thing I purchased and didn't get to use when they took that class).

A friend has recommended the MIT Open Courseware class on Kitchen Chemistry and also the videos on MIT's ChemLab Boot Camp. I'll be checking those out.

Thanks for your work on the lapbook, it has really been working out well for us.

Sarah

Debbie said...

So glad to hear, Sarah!!