Virginia SOL PS.4.b
The Standard
elements are classified as metals, metalloids, and nonmetals.
Virginia Standards of Learning for Science · The student will investigate and understand that the periodic table is a model used to organize elements based on their atomic structure. Key uses include
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students use an element’s position and properties to classify it as a metal, metalloid, or nonmetal. They recognize the stair-step boundary as a useful guide.
What Mastery Looks Like
- Students correctly classify familiar and unfamiliar elements from a periodic table. They support each choice with location or properties such as conductivity, luster, and malleability.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may think every solid element is a metal or that all nonmetals are gases. They may classify hydrogen as a metal or treat every element touching the stair-step line as a metalloid.
How to Assess It
- Give students a periodic table and ask them to classify copper, silicon, and oxygen. For each, they must name one location clue or property.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Give groups element cards with names, locations, and properties, then have them sort the cards into metals, metalloids, and nonmetals.
Ask students to write why silicon is useful in electronics, using its classification and one property as evidence.
Play Classification Corners by naming an element while students move to metal, metalloid, or nonmetal corners and explain their choices.
Set out aluminum foil, a silicon chip image, and an oxygen tank image, then connect each material to its element classification.
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Printable PS.4.b Worksheet
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