The Families
The Reactive Non-Metals: the reactive non-metals are the first group because it has the first element (hydrogen). This family is called this because they can easily create new compounds and are not metals. Some of them are gasses and some are solids which are not considered to be a metal. The most reactive nonmetal is fluorine, it can create compounds with almost any element (even with a few noble gases). Also, there is a reactivity trend within this group, where the non-metals to the left are not as reactive and the elements at the bottom of this this family are not as reactive as well.
The Noble Gasses: the noble gasses are known to barelyreact with any element. Noble gases are colorless, odorless, tasteless, and nonflammable gases. There are seven of them, helium, neon, argon, krypton, xenon, radon and oganesson. The reason they barely react is because they have a full shell of electrons which means it is hard for them to lose or gain an electron. They can be quite boring and are always found freely in nature.
The Alkali Metals: the alkali metals are the first column on the left side of the periodic table consiting of lithium, sodium, potassium, rubidium, cesium, and francium. These metals are all shiny, soft, and highly reactive at standard temperature. They are in group one (below hydrogen) which means they have one electron in their new shell. They lose this electron very easily which is the reason they can reacts quite quickly. This is also the reason they react heavily with air and moisture. They are mostly always stored in oil.
The Earth Alkaline Metals: the alkaline earth metals are six elements in group 2 (to the right of the alkali metals). They are beryllium, magnesium, calcium, strontium, barium, and radium. They are all shiny and silvery-white with two electrons in the outershell. This means they are the second most reactive group. All of the elements except beryllium react with water to release alkaline hydroxides.
The Transition Metals: the transition metal family is the biggest family with 38 elements. They represent typical metallic properties and are often less reactive. They are in rows 4, 5, 6 and 7 and take up 9-10 groups (columns) of the periodic table. Transition metals are classified to have an incomplete inner subshell. This allows valence electrons in a shell other than the outer shell. All of the transition metals have this.
The Post-Transition Metals: the post-transition metals has the definition in its name, they are the family after the transition metals. They are generally soft (or brittle), have poor strength, and usually have melting points lower than the transition metals. They are starting to become less metallic because the more you move to the right of the periodic table the more non-metalic elements get. Most notably elements such as aluminum, gallium, indium, thallium, lead, tin, bismuth, and polonium are post-transition metals but some debate that zinc, cadmium and mercury are also post-transition metals. Though, polonium can be a metalliod too.
The Metalliods: the metalliod family is a family with elements that have a mixture of properties of metal and non-metals. There is no definition of whether an element is considered a metalliod, so some of the metalliods can change families. The most common metalliods are boron, silicon, germanium, arsenic, antimony, tellurium, polonium and astatine. All of these elements are even less metallic than the post-transition metal. They don't have high melting points and they are very brittle.
The Lanthanoids/Lanthanides: the lanthanoids are a family at the bottom of the periodic table and are between the alkaline earth metals and the transition metals. They are a group of 15 elements with atomic numbers from 57 through 71 in which scandium and yttrium are sometimes included. All of these elements are quite hard and are also called the rare-earth metals. Though, they are relatively abundant.
The Actinides: the actinides are a family which contain atomic numbers of 89 to 103. They are below the lanthanides series which are below the main body of the periodic table. All of the elements within this group are radioactive and the all the elements after uranium (atomic number 92) are not found naturally and are very radioactive. Many of these elements are very dense and tarnish in air.
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