When it comes to learning, kids always respond better when their imaginations are captured and challenged, and this is true even in the case of trickier subjects.
While many of our kids don’t start to study the periodic table until they hit their teens, home-schooling mum-of-four Karyn Tripp has come up with an amazing way for younger kids to learn about it – while having fun at the same time!
Using the model of the classic family game Battleship, Karyn has come up with a very cool game that will get the little ones very excited about learning chemistry. Sharing the idea on Teach Beside Me, she revealed that even her eight-year-old daughter can’t get enough of the game!
Here’s how to play:
- Print out two sheets with a coloured periodic table on each one.
- Take a plain plastic folder and turn it lengthways, so that it sits almost like a laptop. Glue or clip a table to both sides, setting it up like the Battleship game board.
- Usually, you will have boats taking up 2 to 5 spots on the Battleship lines; here, the kids will be circling elements on the table to represent their ships. Get them to mark in rows of 2, 3, 4, and 5 coordinates on different lines.
- Now, to play! Set up two players, and get them to call out different coordinates – e.g. 4:5. That coordinate will lead them to an element – a great way for them to learn the names and denotations of each element. If it’s a ‘hit’ (i.e. if it’s a spot taken up by their marker), they circle the spot on their chart; if it’s a ‘miss’ (i.e. if the spot is not taken up by their marker), they put an ‘X’ in that spot.
- The winner is the person who ‘sinks’ all of the ‘battleships’!
All photos are credited to Karyn Tripp. You can find the original post on her amazing idea on the website Teach Beside Me.
