Easy Math Word Problems and Solutions

Your child might not find a word problem difficult because of the math operation needed to solve it. Rather, he or she may be getting bogged down in the number of steps involved or having trouble ignoring extraneous information. You can help your child gain confidence in his or her word problem-solving abilities by creating easy problems at home and then building to more difficult ones.

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What Makes a Word Problem Easy?

Easy word problems should be straightforward, without any excess information that your child needs to weed out, and they should involve only one or two operations. In addition, these problems might use smaller numbers, and they may be solvable using visuals, such as pictures, counters or number lines. If you want to write easy math word problems of your own, you can model them off the following examples.

Easy Word Problems with Solutions

1. Rachel had $7, but she spent $3. How much money does she have left?

Visual objects can help your child solve a problem like this one. For example, you might give your child seven 1-dollar bills, and then take away three. There are $4 remaining.

2. Casey buys three boxes of pencils. Each box has ten pencils inside. How many pencils does Casey have altogether?

This problem only uses one operation, and your child may not need to write an expression to solve it since it's a multiplication fact. He or she should solve by multiplying 3 x 10. Altogether, Casey has 30 pencils.

3. Andy has 72 pieces of candy and wants to distribute them evenly among his 24 classmates. How many pieces of candy should each person get?

Although long division can be a difficult concept, this problem is relatively easy because 72 divides evenly by 24. Each person gets three pieces of candy.

4. A pizza is divided into eight slices. If Rob eats two slices and Mandy eats four, how many slices are left?

This problems requires two steps, but it's still easy because the numbers are small. Your child should begin by subtracting the number of slices that Rob ate (8 - 2 = 6). From this number, he or she should subtract the number of slices that Mandy ate (6 - 4 = 2). There are two slices left.

5. Leah walked for five minutes on Monday, 20 minutes on Tuesday, 15 minutes on Wednesday and 30 minutes on Thursday. How many minutes did Leah walk?

Initially, kids might think this problem will be difficult because they have to add four numbers (5 + 20 + 15 + 30). However, all of the numbers end in five or zero, which makes solving the problem easier. Leah walked for a total of 70 minutes.
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