Sharing With the Distributive Property

Sharing With the Distributive Property

     Sharing can be a difficult procedure for a young preschooler. When I first encountered the distributive property two years ago, I found the same difficulty in learning how to “share” the number outside of the parenthesis with the numbers inside the parenthesis. I had been away from college since 1995 and many of the math concepts were foreign to me. Thankfully, I was introduced to an explanation like the one here from http://www.northstarmath.com/sitemap/DistributiveProperty.html:

 Definition of Distributive Property

• Distributive property states that the product of a number  and a sum is equal to the sum of the individual products of addends and the number.

                     That is: a(b + c) = ab + ac

At first, I copied down this definition and simply applied it to every problem I needed to solve for the assignment. After working with the property, I started to make other connections that helped me understand this property.

    Look at the problem 4 (9 + 5) = x.  Imagine that 9 and 5 are friends of our dear number 4. Let's imagine that number 4 wants to spend time equally with both friends. Number 4 will visit number 9 and multiply. Then, number 4 will visit number 5 and multiplies. Like the example in Danica McKellar's book, the number outside of the parenthesis, 4, needs to split it's time fairly with number 9 and number 5 in terms of multiplication. Here is the solution:

            4 (9 + 5) = x

            36 + 20 = x

             56 = x

           

Here is a video that also addresses the distributive property:

     

     After tackling problems in algebra that utilized the distributive property, I was glad I had a good understanding of the basic concept. I happen to be someone who loves to share, so this helped solidify this concept in my mind. Teaching this concept may also require some creativity:

It may also require some stories concerning sharing and fairness that I have learned from the preschoolers in my life. After all, fairness is very important to a preschooler as well as to the distributive property!

Here are some additional resources and games:

http://www.freemathhelp.com/distributive-property.html

http://www.quia.com/ba/15357.html

http://www.glencoe.com/sec/math/brainpops/00112041/00112041.html