I have some fun periodic table mnemonics for you today that will help your teen learn the elements.
These memory tricks include mnemonics phrases and a well-known song (lyrics included).
Read them online or print them out to reference later.
Here they are.
Periodic Table Mnemonics
If you are only concerned with the memorization of the abbreviations of the first 10 or 18 elements of the periodic table, these mnemonic phrases will help.
The first 10 elements are:
1. Hydrogen – H
2. Helium – He
3. Lithium – Li
4. Beryllium – Be
5. Boron – B
6. Carbon – C
7. Nitrogen – N
8. Oxygen – O
9. Fluorine – F
10. Neon – Ne
And this phrase will help with the memorization:
Happy Henry Likes Baking Big Cakes, Not Omitting Floury Nuggets
Elements 11 – 18 are:
11. Sodium – Na
12. Magnesium – Mg
13. Aluminum – Al
14. Silicon – Si
15. Phosphorus – P
16. Sulfur – S
17. Chlorine – Cl
18. Argon – Ar
And this phrase will help your teen remember the abbreviations:
Naughty Magpies Always Sing Perfect Songs Clawing Ants
Now, if you want your teen to have help learning all of the elements, this fun video of The Element Song by Tom Lehrer is your best bet. I’ve included lyrics below if you’d like to print them.
Lyrics:
There’s antimony, arsenic, aluminum, selenium,
And hydrogen and oxygen and nitrogen and rhenium,
And nickel, neodymium, neptunium, germanium,
And iron, americium, ruthenium, uranium,
Europium, zirconium, lutetium, vanadium,
And lanthanum and osmium and astatine and radium,
And gold, protactinium and indium and gallium,
And iodine and thorium and thulium and thallium.
There’s yttrium, ytterbium, actinium, rubidium,
And boron, gadolinium, niobium, iridium,
There’s strontium and silicon and silver and samarium,
And bismuth, bromine, lithium, beryllium, and barium.
There’s holmium and helium and hafnium and erbium,
And phosphorus and francium and fluorine and terbium,
And manganese and mercury, molybdenum, magnesium,
Dysprosium and scandium and cerium and cesium.
And lead, praseodymium and platinum, plutonium,
Palladium, promethium, potassium, polonium,
And tantalum, technetium, titanium, tellurium,
And cadmium and calcium and chromium and curium.
There’s sulfur, californium and fermium, berkelium,
And also mendelevium, einsteinium, nobelium,
And argon, krypton, neon, radon, xenon, zinc and rhodium,
And chlorine, carbon, cobalt, copper, tungsten, tin and sodium.
These are the only ones of which the news has come to Harvard,
And there may be many others but they haven’t been discovered.
That’s it for the periodic table mnemonics. Feel free to share them with anyone else who can use them.