Periodic Table Activities for Elementary Students

Students may think that learning about the Periodic Table of Elements is boring. As a teacher, you can use different activities to draw students into learning the Periodic Table of Elements. Mix up your lessons on the Periodic Table with games, multimedia presentations, hands-on activities and web searching. Your students will not only learn about the elements, but they'll remember them because of your teaching approach.

Wanted Posters

Introduce the Periodic Table of Elements to your students. Give students a handout of the Periodic Table and project one on a LCD if available. Discuss how the elements are organized on the table and what elements are. Have your students research a chosen element using reference materials from the library or the Internet. Break students into groups and assign them an element to create a wanted poster. Each poster should have the title of the element, the atomic number, the chemical symbol, the chemical state, a picture or drawing of the nucleus, the uses of the element, the characteristics, and some interesting facts.

Periodic Table of Elements Bingo

Create bingo sheets with the symbols for the first 50 elements. Do this on your own or download prepared bingo sheets from the Internet. You call out the name of the element and the students cross off the symbol of that element. This is a fun way to learn the symbols for the elements.

Periodic Table of Elements Crossword Puzzle

This activity is ideal for a homework assignment. You can get students started in class, and let them finish at home. Create the puzzle using one of the many templates available on the Internet or you can download a ready-to-use puzzle. Encourage students to do this activity with their parents as a good way to include parents into what you are doing in science class.

Periodic Table of Elements Video

Enhance computer skills in your classroom or work collaboratively with the computer teacher. Break students into groups of three and have them research an element. They should find information on the atomic structure, atomic number, the symbol, the name of the element, the chemical state, the uses of the element and the characteristics of the element. They create a video using Windows Movie Maker, if they have Windows computers, or iMovie if they have Macs. When they finish their movie, have a movie day in class so that they can show their work off, or if your school has assemblies, let them show their movies at assembly. Limit the length of the movie to under two minutes.

Elements Scavenger Hunt

Group students into teams of two. Each team finds examples of 10 elements around the home. For instance, they can bring in salt for sodium or a match for sulfur. They take photos of the items they collect and put them in a PowerPoint presentation. Each slide needs to include all the relevant information about the element. As the concluding part of this activity, each team presents their ten items to the class who have to guess what element is contained in the item. The team with the most correct items is the scavenger hunt winner.