Periodic table games

← Swipe the table sideways to see all 18 groups →

Tap a colour to light up that family:

How to read the periodic table

• Periods are the 7 rows (आवर्त). Going across a period, the atomic number goes up by 1 each time.
• Groups are the 18 columns (समूह). In groups 1, 2 and 13 to 18, elements have the same number of electrons in their outer shell, so they react in a similar way.
• Metals (धातु) are on the left and in the middle, non-metals (अधातु) on the right, and metalloids (उपधातु) sit on the zig-zag line between them.
• The two rows at the bottom (57–71 and 89–103) belong in period 6 and 7. They are kept below so the table is not too wide.
• Atomic mass is in u (unified atomic mass unit). Some radioactive elements have no mass shown, because IUPAC (the world body for chemistry) gives them no standard atomic mass.

First 20 elements

Say them in rhythm, five at a time:

H He Li Be B · C N O F Ne · Na Mg Al Si P · S Cl Ar K Ca

Valency is the combining capacity of an element (NCERT Class 9 Science, Chapter "Structure of the Atom"). Shells are written K, L, M, N.

Who made the periodic table?

Dmitri Mendeleev, a Russian chemist, published the first periodic table in 1869. He arranged the elements by atomic mass and left gaps for elements nobody had found yet. In 1913 Henry Moseley showed that atomic number is the better order. The modern periodic law says: the properties of elements are a periodic function of their atomic numbers.

Print

Colour periodic table (A4 landscape), first 20 elements chart, and a fill-in worksheet with questions.