balancing equations

Balancing Equations: A Hands on Activity

Liz Belasic15 Comments

balancing-equations-answers-public

Balancing Chemical Equations Activity – one of my long time favorite activities. Students will learn how to read formulas, count atoms, create and read chemical equations, and balance chemical equations using a hands on activity with color coded formulas cards.

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Lesson Resources: Create one set of materials for each pair of students. Store in a large zip-top bag

  • Worksheet: handout with directions (pdf)
  • Formula cards (pdf) – laminate and reuse each year
  • Coefficient cards (pdf) – laminate and reuse each year
  • Answer Key for the balanced equations (pdf)
  • Google Slides (NEW) – Balancing Equations Answer Key Public Link
    • These slides can be used to review answers at the end of the lesson
    • You can also print the slides then laminate to use as Task Cards at a hands on station with beads to represent each atom
    • For more advanced students, you can use molecular models and build each model.
  • Practice balancing equations worksheet (pdf) and more from ScienceSpot.net

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Identifying and Balancing Chemical Reactions

Liz Belasic1 Comment

Types of Chemical Reactions (Public)

Tracy has a nice lesson plan and handout on identifying chemical reactions posted on her website: http://sciencespot.net/Pages/classchem.html#chemreactions .  I modified the ppt slides she had posted for her 8th graders to use with my 6th graders as a guided lesson.

I used this lesson after we had already learned how to balance chemical equations using the hands on lesson I created and described below (also found on my Chemistry page):

Balancing Chemical Equations Activity – one of my long time favorite activities. Students will learn how to read formulas, count atoms, create and read chemical equations, and balance chemical equations using a hands on activity with color coded formulas:

We worked through the problems together and I called on students to first identify the chemical reaction and then balance the equation. After a few slides, they began to recognize the types of reactions quickly and had a good understanding of how to identify and balance the equations.

  • Click here for the ppt: Google Slides (Public)
  • to save the slides, you can select “file” then “Make a copy” or “download as”