Why not add some colorful manipulatives to make 4th grade learning more concrete, review the core numeracy skills with worksheets, or incorporate them into a daily math lesson to build problem-solving fluency?
These multi-step word problems incorporate addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division as well as time, money, and fractions. Since they involve more than one step, students should be encouraged to express their thinking with pictures and words to help plan, solve and check each problem.
1. Angel had $55. She spent $17 on a new book and $32 on a video game. How much money does she have left?
2. Nine times a number plus 3 more is 75. What is the number?
3. Sandy found 28 seashells on the beach. Ava found 42 and Alex found 38. If they share them equally, how many will each get?
4. Tim scored 345 points on a video game. His score was 59 points more than Stan's score. Stan's score was 18 points less than Arnold's score. What was Arnold's score?
5. If the product of two numbers is 45 and their difference is 4, what are the two numbers?
6. Adrian spent $120 on prizes for the school fair. Each prize cost $12. He also bought 60 cupcakes to donate. How many items did he take to the fair?
7. Anthony paid $35 for a keyboard and $18 for a mouse. He paid $90 in cash. How much change will he get back?
8. The sum of a dividend and a divisor is 39. The quotient is 12. What is the divisor?
9. The school is collecting empty cans to recycle. They would like to collect 200 cans. Andy brings 8 packs of 6 and Mary brings 4 packs of 12. How many cans do they still need?
10. Steven had 356 fuzzy stickers, 432 scented stickers, and 225 shiny stickers in his collection. How many stickers does he have rounded to the nearest ten?
11. Mandy made necklaces for three of her friends. She used 567 beads on one, 165 on another, and 587 on the third one. There were 1600 beads in the bag when she started. How many beads are left?
12. Sam was running at a rate of 28 miles per hour for the first 4 hours. During the fifth hour, he ran 18 miles per hour. How many miles did Sam run during the entire 5 hours?
13. Angela ate 94 pieces of candy per day for one whole week. During the second week, she ate 242 pieces of candy in all. How many total pieces of candy did she eat over the course of two weeks?
14. Jennifer spent $45 buying gifts for each of her 6 siblings. She also spent $74 on a gift for her father. How much money did she spend in all?
15. Pamela has $1645. Sandy has four times as much money. How much money do Pamela and Sandy have in all?
16. Jane is throwing a party for 16 people. Soda comes in 6-packs and costs $2.25 per pack. If each person at the party has one soda, how much money will she need to spend on drinks?
17. There are 5 chickens on a farm. Each chicken lays 6 eggs a day. How many eggs will there be after 20 days?
18. Samantha cut 6 pieces of ribbon. The pieces were 4.5m, 3.2m, 7.7m, and 8.2m. She put them all together to form one long piece of ribbon. How long was the ribbon?
19. Paul ordered 8 pizzas for his school party. Each pizza had 6 slices. There were 14 guests at the party. How many slices did each person get?
20. A toy car company made 12 cars a week for 2 weeks. They tripled this amount over the next 2 weeks. How many cars did they make after the 4 weeks?
21. Stanley bakes 13 cakes a day for 6 days and then 12 more cakes a day for the next 9 days. How many cakes does he bake in total?
22. Jenny's fence is 64 m long. She wants to divide it into 8 even parts. How many meters does each part have to be?
23. Tania built a gigantic sandcastle with five levels. If each level is 35 cm high, how high is the sandcastle in total?
24. Pamela drives 8 km to school and 8 km home. How many km does she drive after 6 weeks if she doesn't drive on the weekends?
25. Jane grows potatoes. She grew 112 potatoes. She sold each potato for $3 but had to pay her employees $1 per potato. How much money did she make?
26. Alexandra and her 3 friends caught 350 fish. They sold each fish for $2 and then split the money. How much money did they each make?
27. Michelle is a tutor. She charged her students $40 per hour. She has 7 students and she tutors each one for 2 hours each. How much money does she earn in total?
28. Cassandra had 90 pieces of candy. She ate ⅕ of her candy and gave her friend ⅖. How many pieces of candy does she still have?
30. Mary's school is going on a field trip. There are 9 school buses and each bus can hold 45 children. How many children can they fit on all 9 buses?
31. Patrick collects Pokemon cards. He had 28 cards and gave ¼ of them away to his friend. How many cards does he have left?
32. Sam weighs 52kg. His uncle weighs twice as much as him and his sister weighs 14kg more than his uncle. How much does his uncle weigh?
33. It takes Sandy 24 minutes to walk to work each day from Monday to Friday. How much time does she spend walking to work in one week?
34. Sarah’s dollhouse cost $450 and Janet's cost $235. How much more does Janet's dollhouse cost compared to Janet's?
35. Cassandra arrived 35 minutes late for her appointment. If her appointment was at 9:45, what time did she arrive?
36. Molly has a square fence around her house. What is the perimeter of the fence if each side measures 7.5 m?
37. Sam had 84 chocolate bars. He shared them equally with his classmates and each student got 3. How many students are in Sam's class?
38. Andy owns 2 cars. He sold one for $155,000 and the other one for $160,000. How much money did he earn from selling both cars?
39. Chris made $150 from working 2 days. He gave ⅓ of his earnings to his sister. How much did he give his sister?
40. Jane starts school at 9 am and finishes at 4:30 pm. How much time does she spend at school?
41. There are 24 students in Brenda's class. ⅓ of them are boys and the rest are girls. How many girls are in Brenda's class?
42. 8 classes are going to the amusement park. There are 27 students in each class. How many students are going to the amusement park?
43. Lisa can run 200m in 45 seconds. How long will it take her to run 1km?
44. Tommy sold lemonade for $3 a cup. He sold 75 cups in one weekend. How much money did he earn in all?
45. You can buy a single chocolate bar for $4 or a pack of 6 for $18. how much money do you save if you buy the pack of 6?
46. Andrew had 35 friends but ⅖ of them moved away in the summer. How many friends did not move?
47. Jane ran 7km from Monday to Friday and another 32 km on the weekend. How many kilometers did she run in all?
48. Ben earned $450 in September. He earned twice that much in October, and in November earned another $650. How much did he earn in all?
49. Cameron runs 13km every day, except on the weekends. How far would does he run after 5 weeks?
50. A family of two adults and three kids went to the movies. An adult ticket costs $12 and a child ticket costs ⅓ of that price. How much does it cost for all 5 tickets?
51. Miranda got 16/20 on her science test. What was her score as a percentage?
52. Jeremy planted five rows of peas in a garden. Each row had 40 peas. ¼ of the peas did not grow. How many peas did grow?
53. Sam's family has 5 cats and 7 dogs. How many legs are there in all?
54. Cassandra has 360 stamps in her collection. ⅓ of them are from Asia and the rest from Europe. How many of her stamps are from Europe?
55. Samantha has 24 candies. Dan has ¼ more than her. How many candies do they have altogether?
20 Intriguing Problem-Based Learning Activities for Kids