Factors

I was in a colleague’s grade 9 class today and they were working on factors, prime factoring, and identifying common factors, and the greatest common factor between 2 numbers.

I was checking in with students and noticed that some were struggling with the idea of factors, because they were not comfortable with multiplying. They were approaching everything with skip counting, and getting overwhelmed.

As we worked through the factors for various numbers I got out some blocks to use.

here’s an example of the factors of 18.

We made the easiest rectangle, 1×18 the dimensions are 1 and 18, and 1×18=18 so 1 and 18 are factors. We next made a 2×9 rectangle using the same 18 blocks. 2 and 9 are also factors. We made another rectangle using 18 blocks with dimensions of 3×6. 3 and 6 are also factors. If we try to make a rectangle with dimensions of 4 or 5 it wont work, so 4 and 5 are not factors.

Having manipulatives on hand is so important. By working with the concrete tools, we can rearrange them in different ways and deepen understanding about factors.