About Area Model Decimals
Build rectangles of various sizes and relate multiplication to area. Partition a rectangle into smaller areas and discover new strategies for multiplying decimals!
How to play Area Model Decimals
Everything is hands-on: drag, click and experiment — the simulation reacts instantly. Build rectangles of various sizes and relate multiplication to area.
Questions & answers
- What is Area Model Decimals?
- Area Model Decimals is a free interactive simulation from PhET Interactive Simulations (University of Colorado Boulder) that you can play right in your browser on crumble.lol — no downloads and no sign-up. Build rectangles of various sizes and relate multiplication to area. Partition a rectangle into smaller areas and discover new strategies for multiplying decimals!
- What can kids learn from Area Model Decimals?
- It helps kids explore: recognize that area represents the product of two numbers and is additive. develop and justify a strategy that uses the area model to simplify a decimal multiplication problem. devise a strategy to determine the product of two rational numbers (or an integer and a rational number) by representing the product as an area or the sum of areas. use an area model to understand why multiplying a given number by a decimal less than 1 results in a product smaller than the given number. interpret the product of two rational numbers using base-ten tiles.
- What age is Area Model Decimals good for?
- It is designed for elementary school (roughly ages 5–10) up to middle school (roughly ages 10–14), and curious kids outside that range can absolutely enjoy poking around it too.
- Is Area Model Decimals free to play?
- Yes — Area Model Decimals is completely free on crumble.lol and runs fully in your browser on computers and tablets.