The periodic table was put together so nobody had to memorize the elements and their properties. And that is a beautiful thing. But somewhere along the way, naughty chemistry teachers decided that students STILL needed to memorize the periodic table (or at least portions of it).
I only want my students to learn SOME OF the element names and symbols. Other than that, I really want them to learn the areas of the periodic table. Like Group 17 are the halogens, and the d-block contains transition metals.
Why is it important?
Nomenclature. If students aren’t familiar with the element symbols and their names, nomenclature is next to impossible. No, they don’t need to be experts, but they should know a good majority of the representative elements, and the ones in Period 3, and Group 11. I’ve found that these elements come up most when teaching high school chemistry. Most of the others are “weird” and don’t follow the rules we teach in this level of chemistry. You can get the list of elements I recommend for free. Just hand this out to your students!
Quiz it
The primary way I get teenagers to learn anything is by testing or quizzing it. Unfortunately, that’s the world we live in. But for this specific thing, I don’t blame them. It’s largely memorization and that is pretty stinky. I offer some card games to help students study for these quizzes along with the quizzes themselves. You can purchase from my Teachers Pay Teachers Store.
Post a Periodic Table in Your Classroom
I don’t think you need to have a Periodic Table that contains the names. In fact, I’ve found that most posters DON’T have the names of the elements. Just having them posted in your classroom, with space for you to mention specific elements and give them a location is helpful. If Ni is hanging out with all the transition metals, then students should be able to deduce that Ni is nickel and not nitrogen. This is a less intentional way to learn element names and symbols, but will slowly build knowledge over time.
Explicitly Teach it
I’ve also found that the reference to the groups as “families” can help. I know that’s sort of a dated term but hear me out. Fluorine, Chlorine, Bromine… they sound alike for a reason! When my students are tasked with the symbol for Xenon (from hearing me say it, not reading it) the ON in Xenon points them to Group 18, instead of to Zinc (Zn).
Group 11 are the coinage metals. They’re copper, silver and gold – the same materials old coins used to be made of. Little blurbs like this can help your students to learn the elements symbols with ease.
Practice with It
There are a few activities I love to use with my students to help them learn the element symbols. The first few involve element name and symbols cards.
Memory
First is memory. Cards with element names and symbols are placed face down in a grid. A pair of students will play together. The first student will flip over any two cards. If the name and symbol match, they get to keep the pair of cards and take another turn. If they don’t match, they put the cards back and the next student gets a turn. This continues until all pairs are found. The students actually really like playing this!
Go Fish
Using those same cards, students can play 2-4 players. They deal 7 cards to each player and place the rest in the center. Students are looking for pairs of names and symbols. On a player’s turn, they ask each other “Do you have S?” or “Do you have bromine?” in order to find the match to a card they hold. Once they get the pair, they place it down. The student with the most pairs when a student’s hand is empty wins.
War
The final game using these cards is War. The deck is split between two players. They roll a die to determine how their cards will go head to head. Each number on the die is assigned one end of the trends: atomic radius, electronegativity and ionization energy. They flip the top card of the deck and see which element wins. If they have a tie or flip a WAR card, they place 3 cards face down and flip the fourth to try again. The winner of the round, takes the cards. Whoever gets the entire deck wins the game. This is my favorite activity for periodic table trends, by far.
Digital Activity
Second activity we like is actually a bit more advanced because it requires students to know a bit about the properties of the elements. (Which I like as we are learning symbols. I don’t ask them to learn element names and symbols until our Periodic Table unit.)
It’s a periodic table “Who am I?” pixel art. Students read the blurb about the element and put in the symbol to answer the question. The Google Sheet is self checking, so students will know immediately if they got their answer right or wrong. It’s just another good way to become more familiar with the periodic table.
