You can design inference games and run them in class as a type of mystery game or riddles. One example of such a game is 20 questions, in which students must write down an element on a piece of paper, come to the front of class and take questions from fellow students. The students asking questions must ask yes/no questions. The class as a whole may ask a total of 20 questions before they lose. However, if they guess the element the student has written down, they win and a new student becomes the one taking questions. Examples of questions students could ask are “are you a metal?” and “do you have more than three protons?”
As every element in the periodic table is unique with a number of characteristic traits, they are all “roles” in the “play” of the periodic table. After explaining this idea to students, allow them to form groups to create short plays in which each student takes the role of a different element. The groups then perform their plays in class, emphasizing their unique characteristics. For example, one play idea might be to have three students each playing “oxygen.” At the beginning, the three together are ozone--or O3. As one leaves the stage, the group becomes breathable oxygen, or O2. Students can make jokes and interact with the class based on how many members are still at the front of the class.
A classic game is an estimation game in which the teacher fills a bowl with candy and asks students to guess the amount of candy in the bowl. You can modify this game to make it suitable for the teaching of the table of elements. Fill a glass bottle with a material of a certain element. Allow students to use the color of the element, the weight of the element and other observable characteristics of the element to guess which element it is.
Flashcards are especially suited as the tools for memorization games. Have students create flashcards with specific content from the periodic table of elements, such as the mass number, atomic number and so on. The students can play a memorization game in which they must turn two cards over per turn, hoping to match an element to its properties. When a student turns over two matching cards and recognizes it as a match, she may keep the cards. The student with the most cards wins.