Lewis diagrams and bonding are actually FUN... *if* they are taught as a process which is a sort of GAME to play with the symbols.
It's an on-paper game of distributing electrons and making pairs to 'share' in order to create bonds, basically.
Use the periodic table to figure out which ions form which IONS, and this tells you how many electrons to allot for each participant-- sort of like doling out cash to Monopoly players, or different Mana to MTG players to start a round, if that makes sense (it might to your middle schooler, anyway).
Then, start making four pairs around each letter-symbol-- by putting one dot at each coordinate position (except H and He, which each get only TWO electrons, not 8)...
It's most fun to get the hang of this on a white board where it is easy to erase and re-write as needed.
It's a PUZZLE-- to see how many ways there are to make a molecule in which ALL of the atoms are attached, and where they have 8 electrons each, (even if you have to "cheat" and make them share sides and therefore electron pairs)... those shared pairs
represent bonds, yes-- but the puzzle itself is an aspect that stands alone like a sudoku puzzle with electrons and atomic symbols.
It's really a lot of FUN to do them. Like balancing equations.
But then again, this is the subject in which I have a PhD, and I've taught a lot of people to do Lewis Dot structures, so I may be a bit biased in terms of considering this fun.
But what it emphatically is NOT-- is memorization based.
Nope. Make a note card that has the PROCEDURE on it, if that is going to specifically be assessed formally, but beyond that, use the periodic table, and figure out which group an atom is in to know how many electrons to give it. For example, Carbon has four, and a fluorine would have seven-- by virtue of which GROUP they are in (that is, which column).
So if I were making a DOT structure for Carbon tetrafluoride, I would need one carbon (C) and four fluorines (F, F, F, F) and then I'd need to play in arranging them in ways that would allow those electrons (4 + [7x4] = 32 e) to "connect" everything and have each of those five atoms have 8 electrons (well, dots representing them) around the symbol, in pairs...
It becomes evident in a hurry that placing the carbon in the center is the only real way of accomplishing this.
Another fun way of doing Lewis Dot structures is with halved index cards (write the atomic symbols on those) and a candy such as smarties, or skittles-- something small and dot-like. Count the electrons, distribute, evaluate, rearrange, etc. Eat your work when you're done for the day.
