Once this is complete, students can then begin to solve the simplified equation, and depending on how complicated those are the student may need to further simplify them by moving down the order of operations to multiplication and division then addition and subtraction.Īlthough the worksheet on the left doesn't cover this core concept, students should also understand the importance of the distributive property when multiplying multiple-digit numbers by single-digit numbers (and later multiple-digit numbers). In other words, the number outside the parentheticals is said to distribute across the numbers inside the parenthesis.Įquations and expressions can be simplified by performing the first step of solving the equation or expression: following the order of operations to multiply the number outside the parentheses by all numbers within the parenthesis then rewriting the equation with the parentheticals removed. The distributive property is a property (or law) in algebra that dictates how multiplication of a single term operates with two or more terms inside parentheticals and can be used to simplify mathematical expressions that contain sets of parentheses.īasically, the distributive property of multiplication states that all numbers within the parentheticals must be multiplied individually by the number outside the parentheticals.

Simplifying expressions