A Fast-Paced Card Game About The Elements printable pdf download

A FAST-PACED CARD GAME ABOUT THE ELEMENTS

You will need: Scissors, photocopies of the pattern pages on white card stock, colored pencils if you

would like the students to color the cards, and a copy of the Periodic Table for each student

Set up

Cut apart the cards. If you would like the students to add color to the cards, provide colored

pencils and some extra coloring time.

How to play

he object of the game is to be the first player to collect six cards.

Decide which player will be the “caller.” This player must read from the list below instead of being

one of the card players. If an adult is supervising the game, this is the obvious adult job. An adult caller

may want to choose particular attributes from the list below to emphasize facts recently learned. It is

easiest to go down the list in order, but the caller need not go in order, and may also use items from the

list more than once (as long as the caller is being fair and is not purposely aiming to benefit any one card

player, of course!) Feel free to add your own ideas to the list given below!

Each card player receives five cards, which he places face up in front of him. The rest of the cards

go face down in a draw pile. The caller reads one of the attributes from the list (the first on the list if they

are going in order). Each player looks at his five cards to see if he has a card that has that attribute. If he

does, he slaps his hand down on the card. The caller looks to see who is the first player to slap his hand

down. That player then shows the card under his hand. If the caller agrees that this card qualifies, then

the player may remove that card from the line up and put it face down into a “keeper” pile. Then he draws

a card from the draw pile to replace that card and restore him to five cards, face up.

The caller then reads off another attribute from the list and the game continues in this manner until

one player has six cards in his “keeper” pile. If no player has a card that qualifies, the caller simply goes

on to the next one on the list.

If you reach the end of the list, just start over at the beginning again.

Game takes 5-20 minutes to play. Often there is time to play several games in a row. You can switch

callers between games if you want to.

Note: Some of these clues require the students to look at the atomic weight, or “mass,” of the element. (Weight and mass are

not really the same thing, but in this case the words can be used interchangeably, so we won’t go into the difference between

them. Kids seem to prefer “weight” to “mass.”) The atomic mass is listed in smaller print right under the atomic number. It is

basically the number of protons and neutrons added together. Electrons are so small they add almost nothing to the total mass.

The students may notice that some of the atomic masses are decimal numbers, instead of whole numbers, and they may wonder

if this means that there can be fractional pieces of protons and neutrons. The reason for these decimal numbers is that scientists

measured many atoms, then took a mathematical average. Since a small percentage of atoms have one or two more (or less)

neutrons, the average comes out to a decimal number. For example, if you weigh ten atoms of neon and get these results: 20,

20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 21, 21, then take the average, you will get 20.2. This is the atomic mass listed for neon. Most neon

atoms have 10 protons and 10 neutrons, but once in a while you will meet a neon atom with 10 protons and 11 neutrons.

A Fast-Paced Card Game About The Elements