Periodic Table Flash Cards: First 36

About this deck

The first 36 elements — hydrogen through krypton — cover nearly everything a first chemistry course throws at you: the elements in water, air, salt, and steel, the first three full periods of the table, and the first row of transition metals. Each card shows the element name on the front and its symbol plus atomic number on the back.

The symbols are the tricky part, because a handful of them come from Latin instead of English: sodium is Na (natrium), potassium is K (kalium), and iron is Fe (ferrum). Those are exactly the cards you'll miss on the first pass, and exactly the ones the deck re-queues until they stick. The atomic number rides along on each card because knowing that carbon is 6 and oxygen is 8 makes later topics — electron configurations, periodic trends — feel less like starting over.

Use this deck the way chemistry teachers wish everyone would: short daily runs before the quiz, not one cram the night of. When the session report shows a clean run, flip your practice and write the symbols from memory on paper — recognizing "Mn" and producing "Mn" are different skills, and exams ask for the second one.