Distributive Property Hands On Activity

Great hands on activity for 6th - 8th graders struggling or just learning the Distributive Property.  I like to tell my students that a fun way to remember Distributive Property is that the parenthesis are like a bowl and the term in front is going to be "double dipped" (or "triple dipped" depending on how many terms are inside the parenthesis) into the bowl.  I always have them circle the term in front including the sign so it's easier for them to remember it when distributing. 

Materials Needed:

Half Sheet of Paper (write boxes and parenthesis as pictured)

3 dice (I put in one red one for the older kids to represent a negative number)

Whiteboard or paper and pencil

Students roll the dice and place the dice in the boxes

(if they are using a red dice for negative numbers, then just put it in either of the first 2 boxes)

Students write the problem formed when the roll the dice and solve!

My summer class of 7th graders wanted to make a competition of it.  So, we set a timer to see who could solve the most distributive property problems correctly the fastest.  It was funny to watch them catch on that when they rolled a 1 they would put it in the first box so they didn't have to distribute or "double dip" like I call it. :)

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Great hands on activity for 6th - 8th graders struggling or just learning the Distributive Property.  I like to tell my students that a fun way to remember Distributive Property is that the parenthesis are like a bowl and the term in front is going to be "double dipped" (or "triple dipped" depending on how many terms are inside the parenthesis) into the bowl.  I always have them circle the term in front including the sign so it's easier for them to remember it when distributing. 

Materials Needed:

Half Sheet of Paper (write boxes and parenthesis as pictured)

3 dice (I put in one red one for the older kids to represent a negative number)

Whiteboard or paper and pencil

Students roll the dice and place the dice in the boxes

(if they are using a red dice for negative numbers, then just put it in either of the first 2 boxes)

Students write the problem formed when the roll the dice and solve!

My summer class of 7th graders wanted to make a competition of it.  So, we set a timer to see who could solve the most distributive property problems correctly the fastest.  It was funny to watch them catch on that when they rolled a 1 they would put it in the first box so they didn't have to distribute or "double dip" like I call it. :)