Why not add some colorful manipulatives to make 5th 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, place value, 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. Jamie traveled 4325 km in 640 days. How many kilometers did he travel on average each day?
2. Miss Jones gave her students the number 30,808 and asked them to write the number in expanded form. Tammy wrote (3 x 10,000) + (8 x 10) + (8 x 1). Jack wrote (3 x 10,000) + (8 x 100) + (8 x 1). Who is correct? Explain your reasoning.
3. James bought crayons for $2.50 and erasers for $4.50. How much change did he get back if he paid with a $20 bill?
4. There are 89 puppies for sale at the pet store. 16 are black and 34 are brown. The rest have spots. How many puppies have spots?
5. Terrance and his three friends earned $359 in August, $522 in July, and $420 in September selling lemonade. How much would they each earn if they divided their earnings equally?
6. Steve and Paul were playing football. Steve gained 82 yards and Paul gained 35 yards. What was the total number of yards gained by both boys during the game?
7. Patrick bought lunch at the school fair. He bought 3 hotdogs for $4.50 each and 2 hamburgers for $5.60 each. He also used a coupon for $2 off the price of lunch. How much money did he spend on lunch altogether?
8. The school bus seats 85 students. At the first stop, 16 students got off the bus. At the second stop, another 18 students got off the bus. How many students were left on the bus?
9. Sandra spent $135 on new clothes. She bought a blouse for $48 and two t-shirts for $23 each. How much money does she have leftover?
10. Four teachers handed out pencils to their students. Two classes had 24 students each, the third class had 29 students and the fourth one had 27 students. How many pencils were handed out in all?
11. Andrew was watching the chimpanzees at the zoo. 45 of them were eating bugs, 36 were playing with sticks and the rest were napping. If there were 122 chimpanzees in all, how many were napping?
12. William feeds his fish 8 containers of fish food each day. Each container costs $3.25. How much money does William spend on fish food in one week?
13. Elizabeth is making shell necklaces for her 7 friends. She needs 23 seashells to make each necklace. She has 89 seashells collected so far. How many more seashells does she need to make all 7 necklaces?
14. Edward and Carl were playing a video game. Edward scored 835 points and Carl scored 345 points. How many more points did Edward score than Carl?
15. Ava bought 8 cookies for $2.25 each, 5 chocolate bars for $1.50 each, and 6 cupcakes for $1.25 each. How much change should she get back if she paid with a $50 bill?
16. 320 people visited the amusement park on Saturday. Four times as many visited on Sunday. How many people visited the amusement park on the weekend?
17. Stephanie bought 45 plain cookies for $2.20 each. She decorated them with icing and sold them for $3.75 each. How much profit did she make selling her decorated cookies?
18. Miles made 45 t-shirts to sell online. He sold each one for $30 but she had to pay $8.50 tax for each shirt. How much money did he make in all?
19. Amy went to the gym for 15 years. She trained three times a week every year. How many times did she go to the gym in 15 years?
20. Lisa sold sweaters. She sold 899 sweaters in her first year in business, 1450 in her second year, and 2450 in her third year. How much did she make in total if each sweater cost $29?
21. Tyler was catching butterflies. In the first hour, he caught 7 butterflies. In the second hour, he caught 9. In the third hour, he caught 11. If this pattern continued, how many hours would it take him to catch more than 60 butterflies?
22. Peter sees 144 cars drive by his house per week. How many cars does he see over 3 years?
23. Shannon has to reserve buses for a field trip. She has 271 children, 12 teachers, and 9 parents. Each bus can seat 22 passengers. How many buses would she need and how many spare seats would be left?
24. John wants to bake 1400 cupcakes for the school bake sale. He can bake 36 cupcakes per day. He has already baked 396. How many days will it take him to bake 1400 cupcakes?
25. Ben and his 4 friends read 60 books in one year. Each book has an average of 235 pages. How many pages did they read in total in one year?
26. Mandy is having a birthday party. She invited 25 friends and baked 432 cookies. She wants to share the cookies at her party but also wants to save 35 for her siblings. How many cookies will each person get at the party?
27. Edward wanted to give away his stamps to 12 friends. He has 624 stamps. How many stamps will each friend get and how many will be left over?
28. Movie tickets cost $24 per adult and 1/4 of that price per child. How much will a family with 2 adults and 5 children pay in total?
29. Melissa earned $560 in September and only 2/5 of that in October. How much money did she earn in October?
30. Paul ate 1¼ pizzas and Sam ate 3 ¾ pizzas. How many pizzas did they eat in all?
31. Jamie earned $800 in his first year in business. If he shares 3/4 of his earnings with his family, how much money will he have left?
32. Sarah had to cut a 230 m piece of wood into 5 pieces. How long would each piece be after cutting?
33. A school of 385 students and 12 teachers was going camping and needed to reserve some buses. If one bus can carry 70 people, how many buses would they need?
34. James is selling his house. He will keep 70% of the profit and give 30% to his mother. If the house sells for $300,000, how much money will they each receive?
35. Steven earned $200 during 1 week of work. The following week, he earned 30% more. How much money did he earn over 2 weeks?
36. Alex made $540 selling buttons at a garage sale and Andy made 2/5 of Alex's amount. How much money did Andy make?
37. Jennifer has a backyard that is 13m by 9m. She wants to add a garden that will measure 7m by 4m. How many meters of space will she have leftover in her backyard?
38. Sandra bought $250 worth of school supplies. The store was having a sale so she got a 30% discount. How much did she have to pay?
39. Danny was building a large playhouse for his daughter. The perimeter of the dollhouse was a square. If one side was 21m long, how long would the entire perimeter be?
40. Kimberly painted a new painting. She spent $530 on paint, $223 on the easel, $55 on the frame, and $421 on the canvas. She sold her painting for $3264. How much profit did she make?
41. Kyle, Jack, and Jamie went to a pizza party where they each ate 3¼ slices of pizza. How many pizza slices did they eat in all?
42. Sam made $500 selling baseball cards in February. He made 40% more than that in March. How much did he earn over the months?
43. Mary wants to add a carpet to her living room. The area of her living room is 123m2 and the carpet costs $8 per square meter. How much would the carpet cost in total?
44. Amy was buying snacks for a party. She bought 35 bags of chips that cost $2.50 each, 6 bottles of soda at $4.50 each, and a large cake that cost $77. How much did she spend in total on the party?
45. Samantha wanted to add some new wallpaper to her walls. Each wall was 8m by 13m and she had 7 walls to cover. How much area did she have to cover in all?
46. Pam bought a new laundry machine for $1500 and a dryer for $850. She got a 20% on the total. How much did she have to pay?
47. Tammy bought a packet of stickers with 78 stickers inside. She decided to keep 2/3 of them and give 1/3 to her sister. How many stickers did her sister get?
48. James earned $900 in October moving lawns. Sam earned 8/9 of that amount. How much money did Sam earn?
49. Patricia cut a chocolate bar into equal pieces to share with 3 friends. If the chocolate bar was 42.6 cm long, how long were each of the three pieces?
50. James ate 4/5 of a cake and Amy ate 2/3. How much did they eat altogether?
51. Stanley's parents agreed to let him buy a new video game console if he paid for half of it. They gave him the $180 for their portion. If Stanley has saved $108.70 so far, how much more money does he need to buy the console?
52. Stephanie made brownies for the class bake sale. The box says that the pan will make 12 servings. If each serving is 250 calories, how many calories would the entire pan have?
53. Every month the Smith family pays $45 for their basic cell phone plan plus $6.95 for each of their 4 phones. They also pay $29.99 for a data and texting plan and an additional $7.45 in taxes. How much is their monthly bill?
54. A beetle is about 3/4 of an inch long. A rattlesnake is about 30 times longer. How long is a rattlesnake?
55. Yasmine needed 45 facts about giraffes for her science project. She recorded 2/5 of the facts she needed from her first book, 12 facts from the second book, and 1/9 of the facts she needed from the third book. How many more facts does she need to complete her project?
55 Challenging Word Problems for 4th Graders