“How many clothes can I fit into my suitcase?” “How far can we get on a gallon of gas?” These are the types of questions we ask ourselves all the time, but may not realize that we can arrive at the answers by using math!
This week’s word problems will give you and your child practice in figuring out “how much or how many” of a given thing. Read the problems below and choose the one that’s the right skill level for your child. Have them give it a try. And when they feel they’ve found the answer, check their solution against ours on the next page.
Questions
Lower Elementary:
Question: Jack’s suitcase can hold twice as much as Wendy’s suitcase. Wendy’s suitcase can hold twice as much as Danny’s suitcase. Danny’s suitcase is exactly big enough to hold 12 sweaters. How many sweaters can fit inside all three suitcases?
Upper Elementary:
Question: A family is driving 40 miles from their home in Boulder, Colorado, to a resort in the mountains. They use 3 gallons of gas to get there. How many miles do they travel for each gallon of gas?
Middle School:
Question: A writer types 36 words per minute. Two hundred forty words fit on a page. If the writer types an hour straight, how many pages does he write?
Algebra and Up:
Question: Jack is running through a maze with a total of 6,000 yards of passages. Jack runs through 40% of the passages, and he retraces 25% of his progress through the maze. If Jack runs for 10 minutes before he stops, then what was the average speed at which he ran through the maze? Give your answer in yards per second.
