5th Grade - Sample Poster Method Problems
Unit of Study: Elapsed Time/MultiplicationThe carousel holds 36 riders. Each ride lasts 2 minutes. It takes 2 1/2 minutes to load/unload before each ride. If the carousel ride opens at 10:00 A.M. and is full every time. How many people will ride the carousel by 10:45 A.M.? If each ticket costs $1.50 per person, how much money will be made in the above time period?
(Challenge) The roller coaster holds 24 riders. Each ride lasts 1 1/2 minutes. It takes 3 minutes to load/unload the roller coaster before each ride. The roller coaster opens at 10:00 A.M. and is full every time. How many people will ride the roller coaster by the last ride at 6:45 P.M. before the park closes?
Unit of Study: Addition and Subtraction of Fractions
Sonia had 2 1/3 candy bars. She promised her brother that she would give him 1/2 of a candy bar. How much will she have left after she gives her brother the amount she promised?
Sue and Alex ordered two identical pizzas. One was cheese and one was pepperoni. Jack ate 5/6 of a pizza, and Jill ate ½ of pizza. How much pizza did they eat together? How much was left over?
If Mary ran 3 miles every week for 4 weeks, she would reach her goal for the month. The first day of the first week she ran 1 3/4 miles. How many miles does she still need to run the first week?
At the end of the 4th week she only met 2/3 of her goal. How many miles did she run?
The zookeeper had a huge bottle of the animals’ favorite liquid treat, Zoo Cola. The monkey drank 1/5 of the bottle. The zebra drank 2/3 of what was left. How much of the bottle of Zoo Cola did the zebra drink? How much was left over?
Grace found out that is she walks really fast during her morning exercise she can cover 2 ½ miles in ¾ of an hour. She wonders how fast she is walking in miles per hour?
Joe and his brother were each eating the same kind of candy bar. Joe had ¾ of his candy bar. His brother still had 7/8 of a candy bar. How much candy did the two boys eat together? How much was left over?
Unit of Study: Division of Fractions
Ten team members are sharing 3 boxes of cookies. How much of a box will each student get?
Two afterschool clubs are having pizza parties. For the Math Club, The teacher will order 3 pizzas for every 5 students. For the Student Council the teacher will order 5 pizzas for every 8 students. Since you are in both groups, you need to decide which party to attend. How much pizza would you get at each party? If you want to have the most pizza, which party should you attend?
Don bought a block of chocolate fudge that weighed 2/3 of a pound. He also bought a block of peanut butter fudge that weighed 5/6 of a pound. If he cuts each block of fudge into 3 pieces how much will each piece of chocolate fudge weigh? How much will each piece of peanut butter fudge weigh?
Marco and Max wanted to make a strawberry pie. They went to pick strawberries. Marco picked ½ of a pound of strawberries, Max picked 2/3 of a pound of strawberries. They each put their strawberries into 4 containers. How many pounds of berries were in each of Marco’s containers? How many pounds of berries were in Max’s containers? Whose containers had the most berries? If each pie needs 1/6 of a pound of strawberries, how many pies can they make?
Tina received a 1 lb. Hershey Chocolate bar for her birthday. She took half of it for herself and decided to share the rest with her friends. How much chocolate (in lbs.) will each person get if 3 people share the remaining chocolate equally?
Unit of Study: Multiplication of Fractions
Isabel had 6 feet of wrapping paper. She used 3/5 of the paper to wrap some presents. How much does she have left?
At the Phoenix zoo 3/5 of the animals are primates. Of the primates, ¾ of them are monkeys. What fraction of the animals at the zoo are moneys?
Every day Tim ran 3/5 of a mile. How far did he run after 6 days? How far did he run in March?
Robert was getting ready for his birthday party. So, he filled 8 glasses with 1/4 of a liter of soda. He filled 5 glasses with 2/3 of a liter of water. He also filled 7 glasses with 1/3 of a liter of milk. How much soda, water and milk did he use? Which did he use the most of? Which did he use the least of?
Mary has 20 kids in her class. 1/4 of them have a cat. 2/5 of those that have a cat, also have a dog. What fraction of the student’s in Mary’s class has both a cat and a dog? What number of student’s in Mary’s class has a cat? What number of student’s in Mary’s class has both a cat and a dog?
Mary and Joe determined that the dimensions of their school flag needed to be 1 1/3 ft. by 2 1/4 ft. What will be the area of the school flag?
Sarah made a garden that was 4 1/4 ft by 12 2/3 ft, Carlos made a garden that was 7 1/2 ft by 8 ¾ ft, and Lisa made a garden that was 6 1/2 ft by 5 2/3 ft. Who’s garden has the largest area? Whose garden has the smallest area?
Unit of Study: Multi Digit Division Models
Susie’s Snack Shack will make 8,652 ounces of peanuts this month. If they put the peanuts into 12-ounce bags, how many bags of peanuts will they be able to make? How many bags of peanuts will they make in the next year?
Nathan’s teacher Mrs. Roberts has a tub of left over crayons in her classroom from last school year. The students asked if they could take them home so they could have crayons at home. Mrs. Roberts has 5, 413 crayons. If she has 28 students in her class, how many crayons can each student take home? Will she have any crayons left over? How many?
Ryan sold doughnuts for his school fundraiser. He sold 3,672 doughnuts. They were sold in boxes with two-dozen doughnuts each. How many boxes of doughnuts did he sell? How many dozens of doughnuts did he sell?
The park has 22 sprinklers. They can spray 1,170 liters of water on the grass in 26 minutes. How many liters can they spray in one minute? How many liters can they spray in 1½ hours?
The most anticipated movie of the summer was released Friday. The total sale of tickets was $12, 765. If each ticket costs $15, how many people were in attendance? For a special price, an early viewing was held Thursday night. The total sale of those tickets was $4,375 with 350 people in attendance. What was the special price offered?
A farm was able to fill 6,534 gallons of milk in 3 hours. The same number of gallons were filled each hour. How many gallons were filled in one hour? How many gallons were filled in 7 1/2 hours?
Unit of Study: Multiplication Powers of Ten
There are 30 polka dots on each dress. If there are 50 dresses how many polka dots are there? How many polka dots are there are if you have 100 dresses? If there are 5,400 polka dots how many dresses are there?
Laura wants to buy candy bars for her class. Each candy bar weighs 0.16 grams. She has 30 students in her class. How much would the candy bars for her entire class weigh? If she bought candy bars for the entire 5th grade she would need to by 100 candy bars. How much would they weigh? If she bought candy bars for entire school they would weigh 80 grams. How many students are in the entire school?
Unit of Study: Operation on Decimal Numbers
Martin’s class put weights on a scale during an experiment. Each weight weighs 0.5 kilograms. If they put 13 weights on the scale what would the scale read? If the scale read 9.5 kilograms how many weights would be on the scale?
A bee colony produces 0.7 pounds of honey a day. The bears ate 0.4 pounds of honey a day. How much honey is left each day? How many days would it take for the bees to store at least 1.8 pounds of honey? How much honey would they have after 9 days?
Justin’s family eats 7.3 pounds of cereal a week. How much cereal will they have eaten after 12 weeks? How many weeks would it take them to eat 116.8 pounds of cereal?
To raise money for student council Jose and Hakeem are selling grapefruit at the American Dream Academy breakfast. Parents can buy half a grapefruit for $1.25. Fry’s has donated 5 cases of grapefruit with 35 grapefruit in each case. If Jose and Hakeem sell all the grapefruit, how much money will they raise for the student council?
If you earn $0.25 for each newspaper you deliver and you deliver 50 papers, and you put half of your money earned in a spend jar and the other half in a save jar, how much goes into each jar? If wanted to buy a new DS game with the money you put in the spend jar, and the game cost $15.99 on sale, do you have enough money? If not, how many more newspapers would you need to deliver to be able to purchase the new DS game?
Unit of Study: Volume
Jenny is going camping. She needs to put all of her camping supplies in the trunk of her car. She packs all her supplies in two boxes. One of the boxes is 2ft x 6ft x 5ft, the other is 3ft x 4ft x 5ft. Her trunk is 4ft x 6ft x 6ft. Will the boxes of camping supplies fit into her trunk? If she has enough space in her trunk, how many cubic feet will she have left in her trunk?
A swimming pool is 9m long x 5m wide x 2 meters deep. The water resistant paint needed for the pool costs $6.00 per square meter. How much will it cost to paint the interior of the pool? How many liters of water will be needed to fill it?
Unit of Study: Measurement Units
Maria, Henry, and Karl went to the store to buy cloth for some new curtains they wanted to make for their rooms. Maria measured her cloth to be 3 m, Henry’s cloth was 635 cm and Karl’s cloth was 0.004 kilometers in length. Who will have the longest curtains when they are made? Who will have the shortest curtains? How much longer is the longest set of curtains than the shortest set?
Sharon works in the school cafeteria. She has several 8 oz cartons of milk. She wants to fill up larger containers so they take up less space in the school cafeteria refrigerator. Which will use the most cartons of milk to fill 6 gallons or 16 quarts and why?
The students in Ms. Johnson’s class grew bean plants in science class. Below is the information for one group’s plant growth.
The Falcons Bean Plant Growth
Student / Plant Height
Martha / 27 inches
Jose / 16 inches
Lizeth / 19 inches
Alissa / .75 yards
Tony / 2 ½ feet
Melissa / 1.25 yards
Which students had plants that we taller than 1 foot? Which students Had plants that were taller than 2 feet? What fraction of the group had bean plants above 1½ feet tall?