National Chemistry Week is one of my favorite excuses to make chemistry class a little more fun. It always includes October 23rd, (Mole Day!) but there’s one tiny problem with most Mole Day activities: my students haven’t learned the mole yet.
In my chemistry scope and sequence, National Chemistry Week usually falls somewhere around the periodic table. Moles don’t show up until much later in the year. So while there are approximately one million adorable mole-themed activities out there, I need National Chemistry Week activities that my students can actually DO in October.
You can decorate the room. Make your normal practice a little more fun. Give your students an excuse to move around. Throw in a ridiculous chemistry demo. Basically, let chemistry feel a little special for a week without losing five instructional days in the process. Here are some of my favorite ways to do it!
Decorate Your Room for National Chemistry Week
This is probably the easiest one. Decorate!
You don’t have to go crazy here. Print some chemistry memes. Hang up chemistry jokes. Throw a periodic table tablecloth over something. Put some ridiculous chemistry puns on the board. No matter how you decorate, your students will love it. Hang this National Chemistry Week Banner I created (get it for free!)
You can also get your students involved! Give each student an element and have them make a little poster about it. Hang them around the room for the week and suddenly your National Chemistry Week decorations doubled as a periodic table activity. And if you’re around the periodic table in your curriculum right now too, check out my ideas for helping chemistry students learn their element names and symbols. This is a great week to sneak in some extra element practice without making it feel like extra work.
Lean into the Chemistry Theme
You know that ridiculous chemistry shirt your second cousin bought you for Christmas because you’re “the chemistry person” in the family? This is its moment. Wear the chemistry shirt. Drink your coffee out of the periodic table mug. Put chemistry jokes on the board.
This is the time to break out your nerdy attire. National Chemistry Week is supposed to be FUN. In fact, I wrote an entire post about why I think chemistry is the MOST fun science, and National Chemistry Week is a pretty good time to prove it.
We all know that scientists are some of the smartest people around (insert hair flip). All of that time in the lab gives scientists insights into patience and human nature that nobody else is lucky enough to receive. The lessons that can be taught from just a sentence or two of their wisdom can really change a kid’s perspective. The quotes you choose can be super deep, or somewhat superficial. You can target specific quotes for your students knowing their individual strengths and struggles. I like to have my students interpret these quotes, or put them in their own words for my Do Now assignment. The bell ringers don’t have to be all chemistry all the time. Our job is to teach them, which will sometimes include teaching life lessons.
Turn your worksheets into activities
Worksheets are boring – we all know it. Turn everything you can into a game for the week and see how excited your students are for chemistry class! This will work for whatever you are teaching in chemistry – you don’t have to adjust your content at all!
- Cut a worksheet into pieces and paste on the wall as a gallery walk.
- Print one copy of a worksheet per row or table, and have them pass the paper down the row in a race. First team to finish the paper wins a prize (it can be as simple as a sticker or a high five, or maybe a HW pass if you’re feeling generous)
- Get your students up and moving with a Chem Quest, where they follow a question and answer trail around your classroom.
- Create a card sort (I have a few in my store if you want to check them out): Have students physically sort cards into groups. Read more about how I use card sorts in this post.
- Use the Magic Answer Checker and paired games to turn any worksheet you already have into a self assessment game!
Make Your Normal Chemistry Content Feel Like an Event
This is also a great week to pull out something a little more interactive. Pixel arts, escape rooms, review games, and Chemistry Mysteries can all take the content you’re already teaching and make it feel like something different.
And if you’re around the same place in the school year that I usually am, a Periodic Table Trends Chemistry Mystery is basically perfect for National Chemistry Week. Students are still practicing ionization energy, electronegativity, atomic radius, nuclear charge, and shielding. They’re just using their answers to uncover clues and solve a mystery instead of completing another worksheet. I have a whole collection of Chemistry Mysteries covering different topics, so you can pick one that actually matches wherever you happen to be in your curriculum.
That’s really the goal here. You don’t need to teach something completely random just because it’s National Chemistry Week. Take what you’re already teaching and make it a little more memorable.
Allow Yourself to Go Off-Schedule
Okay, all of that being said, you can also just do something fun. Slime may have absolutely nothing to do with the periodic table lesson you taught yesterday. But that’s fine because IT’S NATIONAL CHEMISTRY WEEK! (Imagine me waving my arms in excitement like Kermit the Frog when you read that.)
Make slime. Tie-dye something. Make elephant toothpaste. Pull out one of those chemistry demonstrations you love but can never quite justify fitting into the curriculum.
You can certainly connect these activities back to chemistry concepts today, or at some point in the future (my vote). You can take today and just make it fun for the sake of fun. There are plenty of days during the school year when we’re worried about standards, pacing, testing, and getting through the curriculum. National Chemistry Week can be one of the days when chemistry gets to be cool just because chemistry is cool.
National Chemistry Week Doesn’t Have to Throw a Wrench in Your Plans
You don’t need five elaborate National Chemistry Week lesson plans. And you certainly don’t need to suddenly teach the mole in October because the calendar says October 23rd is Mole Day. Hang up some decorations. Wear the ridiculous chemistry shirt. Turn the worksheet you were already planning to give into a gallery walk. Let your students solve a Chemistry Mystery. Do your favorite demo.
The point is just to let chemistry feel a little special for a week. Especially by October, when the back-to-school sparkle has worn off for you AND your students, a little change of pace can go a long way.
