The students prepare a short proposal outlining their desired target and why they want to make it. Chemicals are ordered, and during the last 3-4 weeks of the semester, the students carry out their synthesis. The writeup is as a paper submtited to the journal Inorganic Chemistry using the template from the journal web page.
Simply take a large dish, and fill it with liquid mercury. Float things on the mercury. Rocks, iron nails, witches, lead shot, you name it. It's best to start with the least ridiculously dense things, and build up to lead shot.
WARNING: Mercury is way bad for you, kids. Use appropriate caution.
Students assigned a portion of the periodic table. Generally, a student is given a column of the main group, but this can easily be varied, depending on the size of the class.
I have students construct Lewis structures on the board starting at the noble gases and working backwards to the group 14 elements. We talk about both second period then heavier elements. As we move across the period we transition from molecular solids to extended solids.
This is a nice transition from molecular chemistry to extended compounds. I use this as a bridge into the solid state portion of the course because it allows me to review Lewis structures, trends in bond energies, and provide some descriptive chemistry information.
This paper discusses the synthesis and characterization of a novel compound of nitrogen. The pre-discussion assignment asks students draw a Lewis structure for the N5+ cation, and using the tools of group theory, conduct a normal mode vibrational analysis, comparing the results to the experimental Raman spectral data.