This is a fully-resourced lesson that looks at the meaning of a limiting reactant in a chemical reaction and guides students through how to apply this to a number of calculations. Step by step guides are used to go through worked examples so students are able to visualise how to set out their work. The lesson begins with a fun analogy involving sausages and potatoes so that students can identify that the potatoes limited the sale of food. Alongside this, students will learn the key term excess. Some time is then taken to ensure that students can spot the limiting reactant and the one in excess in actual chemical reactions and method descriptions. Moving forwards, students will be guided through two calculations that involve limiting reactants - those to calculate the theoretical yield and the other to calculate a balanced symbol equation. Other skills involved in these calculations such as calculating the relative formula mass are recalled and a few examples given to ensure they are confident. The question worksheet has been differentiated two ways so that any students who need extra assistance can still access the learning. This lesson has been written for GCSE students.

This lesson has been written with the aim of engaging students in the topic of simple and giant covalent molecules, as this is a topic which is often considered to be boring or is brushed over. A variety of tasks have been used to maintain the interest whilst ensuring that they key details and Science are known and understood. The lesson begins with a quick recap task where students have to recognise a covalent bond from a description and fill the missing part. Moving forwards, they are introduced to the fact that covalent molecules can be simple or giant. They are then presented with a table showing some properties of covalent molecules and having to group them as simple or giant in the short space of time that the table remains displayed on the board. This task challenges their observational skills, something which will again be tested later in the lesson as they study the structure of graphite and diamond. Time is taken to ensure that key details such as the strong covalent bonds in both sets of molecules is understood and that it is the weak intermolecular forces which are actually responsible for the low melting and boiling points. The last part of the lesson introduces diamond and graphite as allotropes of carbon and students will briefly learn why one of these conducts electricity whilst the other doesn’t. If you want a lesson about these allotropes in more detail, then please look for “Diamond and Graphite”. Progress checks have been written into the lesson at regular intervals so that students are constantly assessing their understanding and so misconceptions are quickly identified. This lesson has been written for GCSE students (14 - 16 years of age in the UK)

This is an informative and engaging lesson, which has been designed for GCSE but is perfectly suitable for younger students who are studying the states of matter. Students will have encountered this topic at KS3 and potentially before, and therefore the aim of this lesson is to consolidate that knowledge and to deepen in critical areas. A number of quick competitions have been written into the lesson to maintain engagement and to test prior knowledge in a different way. In addition, progress checks are found at regular intervals so that students can constantly assess their understanding. The start of the lesson looks at the different properties of the three states and ensures that particle diagrams are not only recognised but can be explained. A lot of students consider elements to be in one state only at all times and therefore time is taken to show them how the specific temperature is the determining factor on the state. Students are guided through using the melting and boiling points to determine which state a substance is in at a given temperature. The rest of the lesson focuses on changing state and the change in the particles at each of these stages.

This is a fully-resourced lesson, designed for GCSE students, that lteaches students how to prove that mass is conserved in a chemical reaction and guides them in the explanation of why some reactions do not give equal masses when measured. The lesson begins by introducing the law of the conservation of mass. Students will learn that they can expect questions which challenge them to prove that mass is conserved through the use of the relative formula mass. Therefore, the next section of the lesson focuses on the skills associated with this calculation and looks at more different formulae such as those with brackets. Students are given an opportunity to check their skills before trying to prove mass is conserved in three chemical reactions. All questions have displayed mark schemes so that students can assess their understanding. The rest of the lesson looks at instances of when the mass of the reactants does not equal the mass of the products. A practical method for the decomposition of copper carbonate is provided if the teacher wants to use it, so that students can collect results which show this difference in mass. Discussions are encouraged in order to get students to offer explanations as to why the mass of the products is lower. Once the gas has been identified, students are further challenged to consider apparatus that could be used to collect and record the results to again prove conservation.

This is a fully-resourced lesson which includes an engaging and detailed lesson presentation and differentiated worksheets that together guide students through the key details of endothermic and exothermic reactions. This lesson has been designed for GCSE students but could be used with students entering this topic at A-level who are looking for a recap on the key details. This lesson focuses on a few critical areas of these reactions and those which are often poorly understood. For example, considerable time is taken to ensure that students understand how energy is taken in to break bonds in a reaction and given out when bonds are formed. From this basis, they learn to compare the amount of energy taken in with the amount given out and ultimately determine whether it is an endothermic or exothermic reaction. The format of the lesson is that students are guided through the combustion of methane as an exothermic reaction and shown how to draw reaction profiles and calculate energy changes using the bond energies to prove it is that type of reaction. Having worked with the teacher and each other on this reaction, students are then challenged to bring their skills together to describe, explain and represent an endothermic reaction. If students feel that they will need some assistance on this task, the worksheet has been differentiated so they can still access the learning. There are a number of quick competitions written into the lesson to maintain engagement and also progress checks are found at regular intervals so students can constantly assess their understanding. The lesson finishes with a final game called The E factor which tests the students knowledge from across the whole lesson.

A fully-resourced lesson that uses a range of tasks, understanding checks and quick competitions to guide students through calculating the relative formula mass for substances with a range of chemical formulae. The relative formula mass is required in a lot of calculations, such as those that involve moles, so it is an important skill to get right. Worked examples are used throughout the lesson to visualise the metho for the students. Initially, students will learn how to calculate the mass from simple formulae before helpful hints are provided for harder formulae such as those that contain a bracket. Students are given the chance to apply their knowledge by proving that mass is conserved in a reaction. This lesson has been written for GCSE students but could be used with higher ability KS3 students in lessons that are looking to push knowledge forward