Properties of Metalloids - Inferences Activity

Four illustrated clue cards, four quick decisions. A shiny gray silicon chip cracks instead of denting. A silicon chip carries more electricity than rubber but far less than copper. A silicon solar panel turns sunlight into power. And a shiny element bends into wire and conducts like copper - so is it even a metalloid? For each card, students circle what they can figure out, then underline the words that tipped them off. It is metalloid reasoning for TEKS 6.6C that fits in one page.

What's Included

• 1 student page: 4 illustrated inference cards with three answer choices each
• 1 teacher key page with the answer and the exact clue words for every card, plus a short note on handling the underlining task
• Letter-size PDF, no prep

How It Helps You Teach

• Moves students from vocabulary to reasoning: they must weigh a metal-like trait and a nonmetal-like trait at the same time to spot a metalloid
• The final card flips the task - students meet a metal and must rule out "metalloid" using its properties, exactly the classification skill in TEKS 6.6C
• The underlining step makes student thinking visible without turning the sheet into a writing task

Pair It With

This sheet is part of a four-activity Properties of Metalloids set: Context Clues, Inferences, Science in the News (silicon and computer chips), and Science Sort (Metal, Nonmetal, or Metalloid?). Check out our library for the other three and the full set.

Standards: TEKS 6.6C; NGSS PS1.A / MS-PS1-3. Part of the Daily Science series by Workybooks.