Teaching Distributive Property to 7th Graders 4 x 8 + 4 x 3 =. 32 + 12 =. 44. Now you show your students that the distributive property really works for addition by re-doing the above expression and following the normal order of operations, that is, by first adding the numbers in the parentheses and then multiplying that sum by the outside number. 4 x (8 + 3) =. 4 x (11) =.