Description
What our Factor Using the Distributive Property lesson plan includes
Lesson Objectives and Overview: Factor Using the Distributive Property teaches students how to factor using the distributive property. At the end of the lesson, students will be able to factor using the distributive property with both constants and variables. This lesson is for students in 6th grade.
Classroom Procedure
Every lesson plan provides you with a classroom procedure page that outlines a step-by-step guide to follow. You do not have to follow the guide exactly. The guide helps you organize the lesson and details when to hand out worksheets. It also lists information in the blue box that you might find useful. You will find the lesson objectives, state standards, and number of class sessions the lesson should take to complete in this area. In addition, it describes the supplies you will need as well as what and how you need to prepare beforehand.
Options for Lesson
Included with this lesson is an “Options for Lesson” section that lists a number of suggestions for activities to add to the lesson or substitutions for the ones already in the lesson. One optional addition to the lesson is to have your students complete practice problems where they highlight the greatest common factor with a highlighter to show which numbers and variables are in common. If you have students who are more advanced, you can begin to incorporate multiple variables and exponents. You can also have your students work both directions in distributing and factoring so they are able to connect the two processes.
Teacher Notes
The teacher notes page includes a paragraph with additional guidelines and things to think about as you begin to plan your lesson. This page also includes lines that you can use to add your own notes as you’re preparing for this lesson.
FACTOR USING THE DISTRIBUTIVE PROPERTY LESSON PLAN CONTENT PAGES
Factoring Using the Distributive Property
The Factor Using the Distributive Property lesson plan includes two content pages. First, we need to review the distributive property: a (b+c) = ab + ac. When you factor using the distributive property, you go in reverse because you’re trying to find the greatest common factor.
The easiest way to understand factoring with distribution is to look at example problems. The first example is 40 + 70. The first thing we need to do is find the greatest common factor (GCF) of 40 and 70. The GCF of 40 and 70 is 10. Next, you divide each term by the GCF: 40 / 10 = 4 and 70 / 10 = 7. That leaves us with 10 x 4 + 10 x 7.
We can rewrite it by pulling out the common factor of 10 and rewriting the problem in factored form: 10 (4 + 7). Finally, you can check your answer by distributing. If the answer is the original problem, you did it correctly! 10 x 4 = 40 and 10 x 7 = 70, so it’s correct.
Sometimes, the terms will include variables. For example, you might have the problem 7x + 7y. To factor using the distributive property, we use the same steps. Find the GCF, remove it, and rewrite. The GCF is 7. because the terms don’t have a variable in common, we factor out the 7 but leave the variables: 7 ( x + y).
What if the variables are the same? For example, look at the problem 2x + 3x. We follow the same steps as before. The only common factor is the variable x, so we factor out the x and leave the coefficients: x (2 + 3).
It’s important to learn how to factor using the distributive property! This is a useful tool for solving math problems as you begin solving more difficult algebra problems.
FACTOR USING THE DISTRIBUTIVE PROPERTY LESSON PLAN WORKSHEETS
The Factor Using the Distributive Property lesson plan includes three worksheets: an activity worksheet, a practice worksheet, a homework assignment, and a quiz. You can refer to the guide on the classroom procedure page to determine when to hand out each worksheet.
WHITE BOARD ACTIVITY WORKSHEET
The activity worksheet asks students to solve problems that their teachers writes on the board on their own personal white boards and hold up their answer to be checked by the teacher. Students can also work in groups to solve the problems, holding up one answer for the entire team.
FACTORING PRACTICE WORKSHEET
For the practice worksheet, students will factor using the distributive property.
FACTOR USING THE DISTRIBUTIVE PROPERTY HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT
Like the practice worksheet, for the homework assignment, students will factor using the distributive property.
QUIZ
This lesson also includes a quiz that you can use to test students’ understanding of the lesson material. For the quiz, students will factor using the distributive property, showing their work.
Worksheet Answer Keys
This lesson plan includes answer keys for the practice worksheet, the homework assignment, and the quiz. If you choose to administer the lesson pages to your students via PDF, you will need to save a new file that omits these pages. Otherwise, you can simply print out the applicable pages and keep these as reference for yourself when grading assignments.
