Homeschool Science: Periodic Table of the Elements Resources

Quick Pick Six Elements with my ten-year-old. I miss those long-ago days of literally homeschooling around our big family room table!

Throughout our entire homeschooling journey, I always LOVED studying the Periodic Table of the Elements with the kids. And tbh, I don't know if we came back to it so often because it was really always coming up in our studies... or because I was always making an excuse to come back to it!

For instance, in that same homeschool year as the photo above, we studied the Periodic Table of the Elements as part of a chemistry unit, a geology unit, and a history of science study. We came back to it over the years every time studied biology, every time we studied geology, that one time that we did the history of science study... and this last homeschool year, my high school Senior and I took one last spin through the Periodic Table as part of her Honors Chemistry lab science.

You won't be surprised, then, to learn that I've amassed a lot of resources relating to the Periodic Table of the Elements. Here are some that we've used over the years:

We have worked this PTOE puzzle SO many times!

• Quick Pick Six Elements. I printed the playing cards on card stock and the kids colored them; I don't usually put that much effort into a handmade material, but we have used the snot out of this game! There are some other element flash cards that are already colored in available here.
• Interactive Periodic Table of the Elements. Click on one of the elements, and you can see images and descriptions. It's probably better for younger kids. This interactive Periodic Table of the Elements is better for older students.
• Periodic Table of Mistakes. After your kids have learned how the Periodic Table is organized, present them with this and see if they can spot all of the mistakes!
• PTOE Cookies. You know how we love baking delicious things for school! I really want to make cookies or cupcakes of the entire Periodic Table.
• Element Collection. How large of a collection can you accrue? I also think it would be fun to organize this as a scavenger hunt--how many elements do you already own?
• Lewis Dot Diagram of the Elements. Try this one instead of your standard Periodic Table.
• Build a Periodic Table of the Elements. Here's a big project for the semester--build your own wall-sized Periodic Table! If you don't need as much hand-holding, here's a free download that shows you how to set up this assignment.
• Egg Carton Periodic Table. Make your own Periodic Table of the Elements out of egg cartons.
• Periodic Table of Videos. TED-Ed has a lesson for every element in the Periodic Table.
• Cartoon Elements. Need your elements anthropomorphized? Here you go!
• PTOE Battleship. Here's a great way to get kids comfortable with pronouncing (or trying to pronounce!) the names of the elements.
• Periodic Table of the Elements Lapbook. My kids never got into lapbooks, although I do sometimes have them complete some of the smaller elements to include in the notebooks that they do keep.
• Chemical Element Trump Cards. Here's another card game, this one available as a free download.
• Element Coloring Pages. You can only get a few of the pages for free, but if your kiddo enjoys them, you could buy the book!
• Montessori Three-Part Cards of the Elements. A Montessori kid would adore these.
• Blank Table. Why not just write in your own?
• Cross-stitch Elements. This probably isn't for the kids, but I now deeply desire to make an entire cross-stitch Periodic Table of the Elements. Or maybe Perler beads?
• Cheater quilt. You can print the table, itself, onto quilting cotton via Spoonflower, and then sew it yourself, or use it as a beginner sewing project to do with the kids. Kids love hand-quilting! This one, on the other hand, is more of a patchwork sewing project, but you lose the element info. 
• Poster. We have always LOVED our large-format anchor charts over here. The bigger they are, the more room the kids have to draw and glue things all over them!

We also watch a lot of YouTube videos when we study something. When the kids were little I pre-screened videos before I watched with them, but I always had several go-to sources that I knew would be good. You might want to add these to your Watch List sooner rather than later, because you know how things are with YouTube--today's video is tomorrow's static!

And here are our FAVORITE favorite resources--THE BOOKS!!!!!!!!!

• The Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Elements
• The Disappearing Spoon
• The Stardust That Made Us
• The Periodic Table: A Visual Guide to the Elements
• The Secret Life of the Periodic Table
• The Periodic Table: Elements with Style
• The Elements Book: A Visual Encyclopedia of the Periodic Table

Although all my kids are officially done with all of their homeschool studies as of this week, you're probably still going to find me doing my own little PTOE crafts now and then. I want to find a way to make a Periodic Table quilt that is both patchwork AND has the info for each element, for instance... I guess when both the kids go off to college in the fall, my partner and I can spend our lonely evenings designing element quilt blocks for Spoonflower to print for me!

P.S. Want to follow along with my craft projects, books I'm reading, road trips to weird old cemeteries, looming mid-life crisis, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page!