The Distributive Property, Part 2

The purpose of this video lesson is to apply the distributive property to situations where one of the quantities is represented by a variable, as in 2 (x + 3) = 2x + 2 • 3. Students use rectangle diagrams to represent these situations, reinforcing the idea that the work with expressions is an extension of the work with numbers. They see that the distributive property can arise out of writing areas of rectangles in two different ways, emphasizing equivalent expressions as two different ways of writing the same quantity.

Grade 6, Episode 16: Unit 6, Lesson 10 | Illustrative Math