Remember me? I am Joe. I am here to help you learn about elements. So lets get started.

 Anything that has mass and volume.  Mass is the amount of matter in an object.  Volume is the amount of space an object occupies.

 Matter can exists in 4 forms, but only 3 are found on Earth.  Solid  Liquid  Gas  Plasma (only found in stars)

 The building blocks of matter. Not that kind of building block Joe! I love leggos! The smallest piece of matter with all the properties of that matter.

 Consists of only one type of atom.  Cannot be broken down into a simpler type of matter.  Can be a single atom or more than one of the same kind of atom. Elements are pure substances they are not mixed with any other one of the elements.

Chemical symbols are like initials or abbreviations. They tell us what element we are working with. Here are some examples. Remember that Calcium - Ca chemical symbolsPotassium - K use one capitalIron - Fe letter which canSodium - Na be followed by Aluminum - Al one or twoMagnesium - Mg lower case letters.Silicon - Si

Compounds occur when two or more different elements join together to make a new substance that has different properties from that of the original elements. Like salt NaCl.

Remember compounds must have two or more different elements in them so there will be two or more capital letters. Water - H 2 O Sugar - C 6 H 12 O 6 Salt - NaCl Rust - FeO