Week 9: Distributive Property & Standard Algorithm Multiplication

Welcome to Week 9 of my blog entry!

This week, my students became confident with learning how to multiply using the distributive property. I am please with their progress and how they have been able to recall the concept of place values to decompose a number, then multiple each party to arrive at a product. 

Before each lesson, I have my students stand up behind their desks and run through their multiplication facts with them. They must be fluent with their facts if they are going to understand the distributive property. The students who struggle are the ones who are either not practicing their facts or are not receiving support they need.

Once we finish drilling, I begin the lesson.

I show the students how to decompose a number before multiplying it by a given factor. Then, In show them how to correct their work using standard algorithm multiplication.

I am proud to see that the students are using this latter process so effectively. they recall "pickling," which is when you take the number in the tens place and multiply it by the single-digit factor. Then, you add a zero to the product. 

I understand that the students must be proficient with how to multiply using the distributive property as well as an area model. I want to give them multiple ways and methods of completing these problems so they can get the right answers as well.