Description
What our Elements: Nonmetals lesson plan includes
Lesson Objectives and Overview: Elements: Nonmetals is a high-interest reading comprehension lesson plan. As such, students will practice various close reading and comprehension skills. In addition, they will learn about these 18 elements in the Periodic Table. This lesson is for students in 5th grade and 6th grade.
Classroom Procedure
Every lesson plan provides you with a classroom procedure page that outlines a step-by-step guide to follow. You do not have to follow the guide exactly. The guide helps you organize the lesson and details when to hand out worksheets. It also lists information in the yellow box that you might find useful. You will find the lesson objectives, state standards, and number of class sessions the lesson should take to complete in this area. In addition, it describes the supplies you will need as well as what and how you need to prepare beforehand.
Teacher Notes
The paragraph on this page provides a little more information or guidance on what to expect from the lesson. It explains that you can teach this lesson in a whole-class setting or as an independent, small-group activity. You can use the blank lines to record any thoughts or ideas you have as you prepare.
ELEMENTS: NONMETALS LESSON PLAN CONTENT PAGES
The Elements: Nonmetals lesson plan contains one content page. Nonmetals are a group of elements on the Periodic Table that are very different from metals. While metals are usually shiny and good at conducting heat and electricity, nonmetals are dull and are poor conductors. Some examples of nonmetals include oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur. Many of these are essential for life and are found in the air, water, and even our bodies.
Scientists started learning about elements a long time ago. One of the earliest nonmetals ever discovered was sulfur. People knew about it thousands of years ago because it can be found near volcanoes. Later, in the 1600s and 1700s, scientists like Robert Boyle began to understand that other substances like carbon and phosphorus were not metals. In the 1800s, Dmitri Mendeleev and other scientists noticed patterns in the Periodic Table. They grouped nonmetals together based on how they behaved differently from metals.
The Nonmetals
There are 18 nonmetals on the Periodic Table, most of which are on the right side. The only exception is hydrogen, which is placed in the top left corner because it has one electron like alkali metals but behaves like a nonmetal. Nonmetals are grouped together in a specific area and are separated from the metals by a staircase-shaped line. This stair-step line helps scientists quickly see which elements are metals, nonmetals, or something in between called metalloids.
Nonmetals have special properties that make them different from other elements. They usually have low melting points, meaning they can melt easily compared to metals. Many nonmetals are gases, such as oxygen and nitrogen. When they are in solid form, they are brittle, like carbon in the form of coal. Nonmetals also gain electrons during chemical reactions, while metals usually lose them. For example, oxygen likes to take electrons from other elements to form things like water (H2O). This behavior helps scientists know which elements belong in the nonmetal group.
Fun Facts
Did you know that the only nonmetal that is a liquid at room temperature is bromine? It is dark red and smells bad, but it’s very interesting to scientists. The hardest known natural substance is a form of carbon—diamond! Even though it’s a nonmetal, it’s incredibly tough. Helium is a nonmetal gas that helps balloons float—and makes your voice sound funny! Nonmetals may be fewer in number than metals on the Periodic Table. Still, they are full of amazing and helpful surprises.
ELEMENTS: NONMETALS LESSON PLAN WORKSHEETS
The Elements: Nonmetals lesson plan includes two worksheets: an activity worksheet and a review worksheet. Each one will help students solidify their grasp of the material they learned throughout the lesson. You can refer to the classroom procedure guidelines to know when to hand out each worksheet.
IODINE EXPERIMENT ACTIVITY WORKSHEET
For the activity, students will follow the steps on the page to conduct an iodine experiment. After they complete the steps, they will answer four observation questions.
REVIEW WORKSHEET
The review worksheet lists 5 questions based on the content. These questions all relate to the content pages, so students will need to refer to them often for the answers. In addition, each question provides which reading tool the question corresponds to, such as text feature, vocabulary, or comprehension.
Worksheet Answer Keys
At the end of the lesson plan document is an answer key for the practice worksheet. The correct answers are all in red to make it easier for you to compare them with students’ responses. If you choose to administer the lesson pages to your students via PDF, you will need to save a new file that omits these pages. Otherwise, you can simply print out the applicable pages and keep these as reference for yourself when grading assignments.
