For chemistry teachers
Teach the chemistry you love. Let the game handle the drilling.
Periodic Mole is a game that teaches students the fundamentals, the symbols, formulas, and patterns everything else is built on, so your class time goes to real chemistry. Free for students to start, and free full access for teachers.
The September problem
Nobody became a chemistry teacher to spend September getting thirty kids to memorize that Na is sodium. You came for the reactions and the why, the parts of chemistry that are genuinely beautiful.
But a class can only go as fast as its slowest fundamental. When students do not know the symbols, cannot read a formula, and freeze at a subscript, every new topic stalls at the same wall, and the lesson you wanted to teach turns back into drilling basics. The kids who fall behind decide they are “bad at chemistry” and stop trying.
And a student who feels lost rarely tunes out on their own. They act up, pull a few classmates off task, and turn one kid’s gap into the whole room’s problem. Fix the foundation and you get the quiet back for free.
What the game does
Periodic Mole teaches the fundamentals as a game. A student cannot take a turn until they answer a chemistry question right, and the game deals the next one at exactly their level, one small step above what they have already mastered. Each question is only a little harder than the last, so the climb never feels like a jump.
It starts at the periodic table, the multiplication tables of chemistry, and climbs from there through reading formulas, bonding, the mole, and stoichiometry, one concept at a time. When students arrive already fluent in the fundamentals, two things change at once: you get to teach the subject you love instead of grinding basics, and they can follow along, because a formula on the board is no longer a wall. The class gets better for both sides of the room.
Free for students, more with a license
The free games, Bond Forge and Pt Paddle, cover the first 12 elements and need no account, and the interactive periodic table is free to browse alongside them. That is a real on-ramp: you can send a whole class today, and they will build genuine recall of the elements every other topic rests on.
The one-time license opens the rest: every game and all the content, the whole ladder that climbs from the elements into formulas, bonding, and stoichiometry, where “arrives equipped” actually pays off. Free is the door your students walk through; the license is the rest of the climb. Both are worth recommending.
Get free teacher access
Teachers get full access free, every game and all the content, so you can see exactly what your students will. Tell us where you teach and we will review your application.
Common questions
Is it really free for teachers?
Yes. A teacher account is full access to every game and all our content, at no cost. We review each application after a quick check that you teach, so approval takes a day or two rather than being instant.
Do my students have to pay?
No, not to start. The free games (Bond Forge and Pt Paddle) cover the first 12 elements and need no account, so you can send a whole class today. Full access for a student (every game and all the content) is the one-time license, bought by a family for home use.
How do you verify that I am a teacher?
A person reviews each request. A school email address is the quickest signal, since your access is sent there and controlling that inbox confirms it; the school name and the class you teach fill in the rest. If anything is unclear, we email you before granting.
What does it actually teach?
It starts at the periodic table (symbols and names, the multiplication tables of chemistry) and climbs from there through reading formulas, bonding, the mole, and stoichiometry, one concept at a time. A student answers a chemistry question to make each move, so playing is recall practice by another name.
How would I use it in class?
Most teachers use it as pre-work or warm-ups: students build fluency in the fundamentals on their own time, so class can be about the reactions and the reasoning. It also runs as a whole-class bracket; see the classroom tournament kit.
Looking for more? The classroom tournament kit runs a whole-class bracket in one period, and the free printables cover periodic tables, wall posters, and element cards.