Multi-Step Story Problems

Solve two- and three-step adding and subtracting problems.

Warm-up, learn, try it together, practice, then a quick check. About 15 minutes.

What children learn in Level 19

Some story problems take more than one step. Read the whole story and picture it before you start.
A stadium has 42,000 seats. 18,500 tickets were sold on Friday and 15,250 on Saturday. How many seats are still unsold?
Step 1: tickets sold. 18,500 plus 15,250 is 33,750. Step 2: seats left. 42,000 minus 33,750 is 8,250.
Check with an estimate: about 18,000 plus 15,000 is 33,000 sold, and 42,000 minus 33,000 is 9,000. 8,250 is close, so it makes sense!

Georgia's K-12 Mathematics Standards:

4.NR.2.5 — Solve multi-step problems using addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division involving whole numbers. Use mental computation and estimation strategies to justify the reasonableness of solutions.