Factoring can be frustrating and time consuming when you don't have a plan of action. Not everyone is aware that there is something called divisibility rules that can be referenced when finding factors. But first, wait a minute... what is a factor???
Factors are numbers that can be multiplied together to create another number. Any given number can have multiple factors.
As you can see, depending on the number... it can take a LONG time to determine all of the factors. For example the number: 100. This number clearly has more than 2 factors. One method is to look at all the numbers from 1-10 and decide if they can multiply with another number to equal 100. This process looks like this:
1 x 100 = 100
2 x 50 = 100
4 x 25 = 100
5 x 20 = 100
10 x 10 = 100
Therefore the factors of 100 are: 1, 2, 4, 5, 10, 20, 25, 50, and 100
Here is a video that explains what factoring is and demonstrates how you can use divisibility rules to find factors:
You can search the web to find resources for home or the classroom to use with kids. There are a lot of free worksheets and videos out there at the click of a button. I found a great site that covers factoring and divisibility rules, along with some sites that have packets and worksheets for student use.
Divisibility Rule Hand Out With Practice Sheet
Math Aid worksheets
No comments:
Post a Comment