In Marco the Great as well as in The Kryptografima, we introduce the distributive property as a wizard which has many benefits in Prealgebra tasks. Remind students of the Growth Laser activity. Multiplication can be thought of as a growth spell cast by a wizard. However, like most spells it hits everyone on the field. When we point our laser and pull, everyone gets increased, whether we like it or not!

In this activity, students will have their first look at multi-digit multiplication. Students should be familiar with multiplication through the previous activities. This game is based on Numberville and thus has some terminology students may not be familiar with. In our experience, they catch on quite quickly.

To play, students will see a multiplication problem such as 6×78. It is framed as a 6-wizard casting a spell on the house of 78. Their job is to take the house and write it as two terms, in this case 70+8. The game will help students to organize information as they click on each occupant and determine the impact of the spell. Finally, they sum the values together.

Play

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