Elementary Technology Lessons

5th Grade Distributive Property

Fifth graders at Laburnum Elementary have been learning about the distributive property of multiplication (SOL5.19), and today students in Ms. Conway’s class broke the process down into its steps using a spreadsheet. First they logged into Google classroom and I gave them a template to get started. I explained that formulas are what computer programmers use to solve math problems quickly. Formulas also give students practice with using variables, another 5th grade math concept (SOL5.18). So they started by typing a variety of 2-digit and 1-digit numbers into columns A & C. It didn’t matter which cell they typed the 2-digit or 1-digit numbers, and I told them to mix them up. All the rest of the cells would be filled in automatically by our formulas. The first formula in column E would identify which of the two numbers was the 1-digit number. I helped the students figure out that the formula would be =IF(A1C2,left(A2,1)*10,LEFT(C2,1)*10) which basically finds the left digit of the 2-digit number and multiplies it by 10. Once I helped them with those two formulas, they could figure out the other formulas on their own without much help. The magic happens when they click and drag the blue dot in the corner of the formula cells down through the other cells. All the answers automatically pop up! The students really enjoyed seeing the results of all their hard thinking… and now they have a better understanding of the distributive property. You can use the template with your students by opening the template and clicking File > Make a copy. Sheet 2 has a finished sample for your reference.