Target audience: ages 8-13

Description:  The topics covered are the same as you would find in any beginning level high school text, but the interest level of the text and activities are geared to students who still like to play while they learn.  This means that student text has whimsical humor in it, and the teacher section has lots of activities, games, songs, crafts, etc.  All of these activities provide high-quality learning-- they are not "fluff."  The overall theme of the curriculum is cooking and recipes, using cooking to explain chemistry concepts.  

Topics covered:  The definition of an element, the structure of an atom, the invention of the Periodic Table by Mendeleyev, chemical formulas, electron orbitals and shells, the octet rule, arrangement of elements on the Periodic Table, atomic bonding (covalent, ionic and metallic), plus an up-close look at the families on the table: alkali metals, alkali earth metals, transition metals, true metals, non-metals, halogens, noble gases, and lanthanides and actinides.

Activities included:  "Symbol Jar" game, "Elements Fishing" game, "Make Five" game, "Quick Six" game, "Chemical Compounds Song," "The Bonding Song," Periodic Table jump rope rhyme,  Periodic Table pillowcase craft project, skits about the discoveries of some of the elements, lab experiments, building models of atoms, Element trading cards art project, and links to sites on the Internet where you can play games about the elements or see dangerous experiments that you could not do at home.  NOTE:  Some of these activities, such as the Periodic Table game, are available for free download on this site, so you can do further previewing by checking out the chemistry section of the free downloads page.

Student text booklet:  60 pages divided into chapters.  The text is kid-friendly without being patronizing. (They'll love the Atomic Chef!) It contains all the information they need to know, so there is no extra teaching required by the adult administering the program.  The parent/teacher can learn along with the student.  No previous knowledge of chemistry is required!   This booklet also has pencil and paper activities such as word puzzles, as well as suggestions for activities the student can do at home, including safe websites they can visit.

Time requirement:  This curriculum could take as little as 6 weeks or as long as 12 weeks depending on how many hours a week you put in, how many times you play the games, how much time you spend on the crafts and skits, and how many of the "extras" you decide to do.  When my homeschool co-op runs this class, we have 7 class periods (once a week for 7 weeks) that last 2-3 hours each.  We expect the students to do all the reading and pencil and paper activities and some of the online activities at home.  We do all the games and group activities in class.  Some of the kids don't get to spend as much time on activites (such as trading cards) as they would like, but we encourage them to keep working at home.  We don't have time to perform the skits, so we just read them out loud as "reader's theater."  Since we have Internet access and video projector at our rented facility, we show some of the video clips in class for the benefit of the kids who don't have Internet access.  The teachers prepare all the games ahead of time so no assembly has to be done in class.  If you doing this curriculum just at your home, you can set your own pace and take as long as you like.  However, I wouldn't recommend more than 12 weeks.