Element Face-Off

My son’s school sent home the following in his backpack the other day.

Kai had drawn it during break time.

Recently, Kai has had a renewed interest in the periodic table that he first learned two years ago. His current interest has been sparked by his recent accumulation of element flash cards when he does the online Thinkwell math program.

Kai enjoys the pictures on these flash cards, but I wondered whether he was learning any of the information on the back of the cards. Sure, he learned the symbols and atomic numbers for all of the elements from long ago, but did he know anything else about them.

On his last birthday, Kai received a Jeopardy-style quiz game from his grandmother. These days, he asks me to make up new questions based on the information from his flash cards. Then, with me playing the Alex Trebek role, he squares off against Mom.

Which element is named in honor of the German state of Hesse?

What acts as the positive half of many batteries?

Which alkali metal aids nerve function, allowing the brain to transmit information back to the muscles?

Which noble gas gives off a distinct reddish-orange glow?

Which element was named after the creator of the periodic table?

My wife is reluctant to play these games as she knows how it will go. Still, Kai really wanted her to play so he gave her a handicap – she could look at the flash cards to help answer the questions.

While that was generous of him, the outcome did not change. Kai won, 430 to 120.

We worry about Kai’s reading comprehension. But when it comes to learning facts on the back of flash cards, he seems to be doing okay.



The answers to the above questions, in order, are:
Hassium, Lithium, Potassium, Neon, Mendelevium

How did you do?

Extra points for every element you can identify on Kai's drawing, with bonus points for telling the reason behind each particular element picture.

Good Weekend, No Doubt

It feels like we have had the most miserable spring weather this year. Maybe it’s just that the bad weather has come on the weekends so we notice it more. But my son’s soccer games have been cancelled several times, and even when he does play it seems extra cold.

So, this weekend, when we finally had some beautiful weather, I think we appreciated it even more than usual.

My wife took advantage by having a large garage sale to benefit the ongoing relief efforts from the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster in Japan. She and the other women who organized the event raised over $1,000.

Our family got outside with two picnics this weekend. Do folks in California ever picnic? My theory is that if you have good weather all the time, you take it for granted and don’t appreciate it like we do in the Midwest. Even for us, we usually picnic only in the spring when we are excited to get outside after the long, cold winter. By mid-summer, the novelty wears off and we’d rather eat in air-conditioned, bug-free comfort.

Our first picnic was on Friday evening when we had dinner in a spot that overlooked a picturesque golf course. Okay so it wasn’t all that picturesque, and it was only a Frisbee golf course, but it was still fun. After eating, we played a round. With the numbers on each hole, it is Kai’s favorite sports activity.

We also had a picnic lunch at our local forest preserve on Sunday afternoon. It is Kai’s favorite local spot for hiking because the trails are marked with signs that indicate the distance. Again, numbers are the attraction.

My favorite part of the weekend, though, came at Kai’s soccer game on Saturday. Apparently he was talking about elements as he was playing. At halftime, the coach came over to me and said that Kai had named the group ‘Team Elements.’

Kai designated himself hydrogen. But, since he was wearing uniform number 6, Coach suggested that perhaps he should be a different element, whatever one had the atomic number of 6. I asked Kai which one that was and he said that it was carbon.

But, Coach said that he thought that carbon was number 12. I asked Kai again, just to make sure that he understood the question. He repeated that carbon was number 6. I told Coach that if Kai says it is carbon, you could be sure that it is carbon. But, Coach remained skeptical.

After the game, we looked in the element book that Kai had in the car. What, doesn’t everyone have a book about elements in the car? Sure enough, element number 6 is carbon.

And so, my takeaways from this weekend are: junk can be valuable; we can have picnics if there are numbers involved; and, when it comes to the periodic table, don’t doubt my son.

Ping-Pong Versus the Periodic Table

It was an epic battle. Strength against strength. Body versus mind. Mom versus son. Ping-pong takes on the periodic table.

We were playing the table tennis return challenge on the Wii the other day. The game involves returning serves for as long as you can. If you return the ball successfully, you score one point, the next ball is served, and you keep going. But, one miss and your turn is over.

I was up first. I missed the very first ball. My score was zero.

Kai was next. He did better than me, which of course is not saying anything. But, at least he got his score into the teens.

Then it was Mom’s turn. Now, compared with teens, gamers, or anyone with a modest amount of coordination, none of us are really all that great at any of the Wii games. But my wife does pretty well at table tennis, at least by our meager standards.

My numbers-loving son gets excited when it’s Mom’s turn to do the return challenge as he knows he may see the score get pretty high. Sometimes, he counts along. And, that’s what he did this time.

Except that he didn’t count with numbers. He counted with elements.

Instead of one, two, three, he said, “hydrogen, helium, lithium” which, by atomic number, are the first three elements in the periodic table.

As my wife’s score got into the 20s, Kai got more excited. “Calcium, scandium, titanium!”

As the streak went on, Kai got progressively louder. “GALLIUM, GERMANIUM, ARSENIC!”

My wife started to get annoyed. “Kai, stop counting! You’re distracting me!”

I, however, was very amused. I was pretty sure that my son had not yet learned all 118 elements. Would my wife be able to keep her streak going until she got to the point where he would no longer be able to give the name of the element?

My wife’s score went past 50. “TIN, ANTIMONY, TELLURIUM, IODINE, XENON…”

I could see the tension on my wife’s face. The elements were getting to her.

“CAESSIUM, BARIUM, LANTHANUM…”

At 69, she missed. Kai didn’t. “THULIUM!”

Elements had defeated ping-pong.

My son remains the undisputed lightweight champion of the periodic table.

Our Periodic Weekend Fun

My son had a fun weekend. Well, by his standards anyway. It was filled with elements.

It started when he got home from school on Friday and couldn’t wait for us to open up his backpack. That was a sign that he had done well at school that day. On days where he’s had an incident, he is reluctant to let us see the point sheet that his school sends home every day. But, on Friday, he was anxious for us to see how he had done.

Sure enough, he had a great day. He had gotten a 100%, which is very rare for him. And not only that, he was recognized as both the Student of the Week and P.E. Student of the Week at the weekly school community meeting. It was a triple play in terms of great feedback.

Over the past couple months, with Kai having so many issues at school, we have been trying positive reinforcement to reward good behaviors at school. So, on this extra special day, my wife gave him the best reward he could imagine: a periodic table game.

The game, called Periodic Quest™, comes with 118 cards, one for each element, and a game board of the periodic table. Each card has the name of an element, its atomic symbol, atomic weight, and other information such as boiling point, melting point, density, and whether it is radioactive or not, among other things.

You can play several versions of the game, including some that involve forming compounds out of the elements, but we started with a beginner version where you move around the periodic table and collect as many elements as you can.

Kai was in heaven with all the element cards. Before this, he was frequently asking us what our favorite elements were. Now, with all of these cards, he was even more relentless with his questioning. “Which is your favorite element that starts with the letter ‘P’?” “Do you like boiling point better than melting point?” “Which element has the highest melting point?”

When we played the game, we found out how many of the elements he already knew. My wife and I would roll the dice, move our marker, and then struggle to figure out which element the symbol stood for. Kai, on the other hand, would usually quickly just call out the name. He is well on his way to learning the name, atomic symbol, and atomic weight of all 118 elements. Hopefully this knowledge will have more practical use for him one day than some of the other information he has collected, like the order in which the 50 states entered the U.S.

Yesterday, the 100th day of the year for those of you who do not have a personal day-counter at home, Kai’s element glow reached a new level: He discovered a Japanese version of the element song on YouTube.

He watched and listened to it over and over. As I watched it with him, I, too, found it strangely addicting. And so, if you want to get a taste of how weekends are at our house, give a listen to this song. But, be forewarned, you may find it to be hypnotic.

The Periodic Table???

My seven year old son is in a state of euphoria. He has discovered the periodic table of elements.

By now, my wife and I are not shocked when Kai is fascinated by things that hold no interest among most other kids his age. After all, it was a year ago that he memorized the Hebrew alphabet all by himself in a few days. And just last week, he was hooked on learning about prime factorization. But even so, this latest one captured our attention.

It all started a few days ago when he received a chemistry kit as a belated birthday present. Science is one of his favorite classes at school, so Kai enjoyed doing the experiments from the kit. The projects prompted some questions, and one thing led to another, and I ended up going online and showing him the periodic table.

Well, that was all it took.

For a boy who loves numbers and letters, discovering the periodic table was akin to discovering the Holy Grail. After all, the table has 118 elements (so I found out), each with its own unique atomic number and letter symbol.

It wasn’t long before he was telling us that hydrogen was number 1 and symbol H, while neon was number 10 and symbol Ne.

He went nuts on the computer, clicking on every link for the periodic table. One of his favorite discoveries was YouTube videos of Tom Lehrer singing the names of all the elements to the Major-General’s Song from The Pirates of Penzance.

He also found a great website that had a dynamic periodic table. Clicking on every element brings up information for that element, as well as pictures and video of scientists talking about and demonstrating the element. Now, the thought of scientists talking about elements may sound boring to you, but my son wanted to watch each one.

When we went to the library on Saturday, he asked a librarian to help him find a book on the elements. Shockingly, there were none in the little kids’ section so she had to direct us to the area for older kids. We got the simplest book I could find, though it was still more appropriate for high school kids than first graders.

Back home, he had Mom make flash cards of all of the elements. His most prized possession is now a set of 118 laminated cards.

Through all of these cards, books, websites, and videos, I was wondering how much of the information he was actually retaining, and was glad that he appears to be learning more than just the numbers and symbols. Kai now knows that neon is one of the noble gases, that hydrogen is the lightest element, and that carbon has the highest melting point.

Still, it is not always easy dealing with Kai’s obsessions.

For instance, he wanted to do the same experiments that the scientists were doing on the videos he was watching. The experiment with hydrogen, for example, involved filling up a balloon with hydrogen, and then exploding it into a ball of flame.

Never mind the fact that I didn’t have any hydrogen handy, we were not about to explode anything in our house. But none of my explanations could stop Kai from continually asking me to do the experiments. And, after that, the experiments in his new chemistry kit seemed too tame to interest him any longer.

He also was annoying when he asked me and Mom what our favorite elements are. Okay, that may not seem so annoying. But when he repeatedly asked us what our 117th favorite elements are, perhaps you can understand why we started to lose our sense of bemusement over the whole thing.

However, there were some side advantages to all of this. At the skating rink on Saturday morning, Kai was giving his volunteer helper a hard time about trying something new. I told him that if he did not skate nicely, he would have no periodic table for the rest of the day. The mothers of the other kids, as well as the teen volunteers, thought it was funny that a seven year old would be motivated by the loss of periodic table privileges. But, that is my son.

So, what is next? The Pythagorean Theorem? The theory of relativity?

Frankly, I’d be happier with a week of no incidents at school. But that would be too much to ask for now, wouldn’t it?


Here is one version of The Elements song: