Metals, Nonmetals and Metalloids

Do the sheets in order, since each one uses the table skills from the one before. Ask students to point to the row and the column on the mini table before they write a group and period.

Sort 12 elements such as Fe, Si and Ne into metals, nonmetals and metalloids using their properties. The directions on the page read: Read the text and study the tables. Then complete page 2. An answer key is included.

Yes, both. We made it for 6th Grade matter, and the page works the same whether it lands on a kitchen table or a center rotation. At home, most families go through it together and talk the answers out loud, and that talking is where most of the learning happens with the periodic table. In class it runs well as independent work while you pull a small group. Print one copy or thirty, whichever the day needs.

The whole number at the top is the atomic number, which equals the number of protons in each atom. The decimal number at the bottom is the atomic mass, the average mass of the element's atoms in atomic mass units.

A period is a row across the table, and all the elements in one period have the same number of electron shells. A group is a column, and elements in the same group tend to have similar properties.

Metals are to the left of the zigzag staircase line and nonmetals are to the right, plus hydrogen in the top left corner. Metalloids lie along the staircase and have some properties of each.