I used to feel that teaching these vocabulary words were a waste of time. HOWEVER, I learned that when I taught students that compounds and elements are NOT hetero or homogeneous mixtures they gained a better understanding of what compounds and elements actually are!

I have 4 places in the room that are marked either Heterogeneous mixture, Homogeneous mixture, compound, or element. We talk about the definitions and how if you look at the label and only see one ingredient it cannot be a mixture. The students with objects have to decide what part of the room their object belongs. Then the students that did not originally receive an object get to rearrange the objects they think are in the wrong place. At the end I pick up each object, have my students vote as to whether it should move, take suggestions as to why, and try to lead them to the correct answer through asking them questions. Some products can be arguable so there is really no wrong answer as long as students are using the definitions correctly. After finishing we create a table. The objects I give my students are the following. Make sure they have labels of ingredients to read on each product.

Homo- mixtures - maple syrup, dish washing soap, flour, baking powder, air (a beaker with a label marked air), pudding, sugar water, salt water, Ajax, pink gum, and creamy peanut butter (basically things from my house)

Hetero- mixtures - Pineapple chunks, soda (2 phases), spaghetti sauce with spices, raisins (these are arguable), wheat thins, ice water (2 phases), shaving cream (2 phases) , chunky peanut butter, different colored gum. (again stuff from my house)

Compounds oil, baking soda, lead sulphite, aluminum potassium sulphate (they think that this is more then one ingredient), water, sugar, salt, water

Elements (they should know they are found on the periodic table) - whatever you have around the lab - iron, zinc,.....

 out of  found this valuable. Do you find this valuable?