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Classes 7 to 10 · ICSE / CBSE / SSLC

Play a game. Learn a subject.

Chemistry is a language, so it is learned in the order a language is learned: alphabets, then words, then sentences. The alphabets are thirty elements and twenty-five radicals, printed as punch-out tokens on two sheets inside the book. A student does not reach the next chapter until they have scored 93 per cent on this one.

  • Ca
  • CO3
  • 2
Buy Now See the method
A student reaches across a coffee table spread with the Playbook: the red element sheet and green radical sheet laid flat, a pile of punched-out tokens, and the book's cloth pouch.

Token Play

Join a token to a token. Watch the formula appear.

One round, the way a student plays it on a table with the punch-out sheet from The Language of Chemistry.

Choose a token, then choose the slot it belongs in. On a keyboard: tab to a token, press Enter to pick it up, then tab or arrow to a slot and press Enter to drop it. Escape puts it back.

On the bench

The formula

Choose a token to begin.

The method

Alphabets, words, sentences.

The same order a child learns to read in, applied to a subject that is normally taught as a list of facts to be remembered. Each step ends in a score, and below the score the step is repeated.

  1. Step I

    Alphabets

    • Ca
    • CO3

    The full name, symbol, formula and valency of thirty elements and twenty-five radicals — as tokens you can pick up.

    CaCO3

    172 of 184 — 93.5% — before Chapter II opens.

  2. Step II

    Words

    • Ca
    • 2
    • CO3

    Chemical formula. Join an element to a radical using its valency — the join is the formula.

    Zn(OH)2

    37 of 40 — 92.5% — before Chapter III opens.

  3. Step III

    Sentences

    • Na
    • 1
    • OH

    Chemical equations. A sentence in chemistry is a reaction that balances on both sides.

    CaCO3 → CaO CO2

    51 of 55 to finish.

The method in full, with a page from the book

Appreciated, and in print since 1996

CISCE
18 December 2002
NCERT
1 July 2008
Published since
1996
ISBN
978-81-959241-0-3

“…certainly will help in making the basic concept of writing correct chemical formula and balanced equations clearer to students.”

CISCE, 18 December 2002

“Activities given in the manual are thought provoking.”

NCERT, 1 July 2008

Both are letters of appreciation for the method. Neither is accreditation, nor approval of the book as a prescribed text, nor current or ongoing. Both are reproduced in full, with how they came about, on the About page.

What is in the box

A Playbook is not a book. It contains a game.

2 punch-out token sheets

Thirty elements, twenty-five radicals and the valencies that join them, printed and die-cut so a student pushes them out and puts them on a table. The colour is the code: an element, a radical, a valency.

  • Na
  • OH
  • 1

The three types are told apart by what they carry and how they are drawn, not by colour — a radical carries a ring, a valency is smaller and set in figures.

A hand holds up the red element sheet, roughly half its circular tokens already punched out, over a coffee table scattered with the loose tokens that fell free.
  • The Language of Chemistry cover, laid flat on a wood table.

    111 pages

    The method, the charts, the activities and the exercises — in the order a student works through them.

  • A student’s hand mid-exercise, pencil in hand, ticking symbols on the Activity I page.

    19 exercises, 279 questions

    Across six activities and two charts. Enough repetition for the notation to become automatic, which is the entire point of drilling a language.

  • Two worked chemical-formula examples, each with its answer — “The Answer is HgS”, “The Answer is CuSO4” — printed at the foot of the page.

    All answers enclosed

    The book marks itself. A parent who never studied chemistry can still check the work, and nothing is held back for a separate guide.

  • The scoring bands printed on the book’s back cover — 184 of 184 down to the 172-mark repeat gate — the same numbers the internal Evaluation Chart uses.

    Evaluation chart

    Scores are read against a chart, because the chapter gate is a number and not an opinion.

Look inside

Four pages, and you will know whether this works.

Nobody buys a method they have not seen. These are the four pages that decide it — the argument, the chart, an activity, and one exercise with the answer printed after it.

  • The book’s cover with the red element sheet and green radical sheet laid out beside it, and loose tokens scattered across the table.

    The introduction

    The book and its two punch-out sheets, laid out together — what a parent unboxes before a single formula appears.

  • Activity II open in the book: all thirty elements grouped by valency, each one carrying its full name and a number from one to four.

    Chart I — the elements

    Thirty elements with symbol and valency, grouped here by how many bonds each one makes — the same information Chart I carries, read a different way.

  • The compound radicals activity page open on a table, with real green radical tokens laid out to match the printed chart exactly.

    An activity

    A student joining tokens on the page. This is the moment the method stops being a claim.

  • A radicals exercise page with several answer cards already filled in by hand, in pencil.

    An exercise, with its answer

    The exercise and the answer that follows it, so a parent who does not teach chemistry can still check the work.

See all four spreads

Where to buy

Buy it where you already shop.

There is no cart on this site. The book ships from the retailers below, and it is on the shelf in Kerala.

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Questions

The four questions that decide it.

Which class is the Playbook for?

The Language of Chemistry covers the notation taught across Classes 7 to 10 in the ICSE, CBSE and SSLC syllabuses. NCERT’s 2008 letter of appreciation suggested it be introduced as a handbook in Class 7. It teaches what all three boards assume — symbols, valency, formulas and balanced equations — rather than following a particular board’s chapter order.

How is this different from a guide book?

A guide book explains the chapter your child has already been taught. The Playbook teaches the language underneath every chapter: the name, symbol and valency of thirty elements and twenty-five radicals as punch-out tokens, then chemical formulas, then balanced equations. It also gates progress — Chapter I will not open onto Chapter II below 172 of 184, which is 93.5 per cent — and no guide book does that.

What happens if my child scores below the gate?

The whole set of exercises for that chapter is repeated. Chapter I closes at 172 of 184, Chapter II at 37 of 40 and Chapter III at 51 of 55 — 93.5, 92.5 and 92.7 per cent — and a student below the threshold works the exercises again rather than moving on. The answers to all 19 exercises are enclosed and there is an evaluation chart at the back, so the book marks itself; a parent who never studied chemistry can still use it.

Do schools get a sample copy?

Yes. Playway Books sends a sample copy to a school that asks, along with bulk pricing and a syllabus mapping for ICSE, CBSE and SSLC. The request form is on the For Schools page, and the Ernakulam office can be rung on +91 484 2405580.

Every question, including what is in the box and what it costs