Multiplication Word Problems

Contributor: Rachel Lewis. Lesson ID: 12086

You've built model cars, and seen people modeling clothes, but modeling math problems? That doesn't sound so cool. However, it is a great way to solve word problems! Learn how with games and practice!

categories

Arithmetic, Operations and Algebraic Thinking

subject
Math
learning style
Visual
personality style
Otter
Grade Level
Intermediate (3-5)
Lesson Type
Quick Query

Lesson Plan - Get It!

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  • What do I know?
  • What do I need to find out?

These are the questions we must ask ourselves when faced with a multiplication word problem. Let’s look at some examples and see how models can help us solve them!

There are two parts to a word problem.

There is the information, or what you know. Then, there is the question, or what you need to find out.

Look at the examples below:

Nate reads 25 pages of a book every day. How many pages did he read this week?

  • How would you solve this problem?

Ask yourself:

  • What do I know? Look for information in the problem.

Nate reads 25 pages of a book every day. How many pages did he read this week?

  • What do I need to find out? What is the problem asking?

Nate reads 25 pages of a book every day. How many pages did he read this week?

Let's review:

  1. We need to know how many pages Nate read in one week.
  2. We know one week is seven days.
  3. We know Nate reads 25 pages every day.

Now we can use a model to show the information:

model 1

Looking at our model, we can see that Nate read 25 pages for 7 days. To find how many pages he read in 1 week, or 7 days, we can multiply 25 and 7.

So, the answer is 25 x 7 = 175 pages. Nate read 175 pages in one week.


Let's look at another example:

Rebecca bought 3 boxes of crayons. There were 120 crayons in each box. How many crayons did Rebecca have in all?

model 2

There were 120 crayons in each box. There were 3 boxes of crayons. To find out how many crayons there were in all, we can multiply 120 by 3.

120 x 3 = 360 crayons

Rebecca had 360 crayons in all.

Try some word problems on your own in the Got It? section.

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