Distributive Property Applet
Adjust the values of n,s, and t to see how the area of the total rectangle changes as you adjust the two smaller rectangles.
Why does adding the two rectangles areas give us the area for the bigger rectangle?
Which length (n,s, or t) afftect both rectangles? Why does it affect both in terms of the distributive property?
Now that your done exploring the applet, imagine this scenario in a general sense, where you don't know the values of each rectangle. How would you do a somewhat informal proof of the distributive property?