Solve Multiplication and Division Word Problems with Arrays and Area

Students extend their problem-solving to situations involving rectangular arrays and measurement quantities, such as area and distance. They draw diagrams to represent the situation, write an equation, and solve. This connects multiplication and division to geometry and measurement contexts.

Try three of them

Real questions from this skill, graded here. No account, and nothing is saved.

Grade 3 · Multiplication and Division Word Problems · question 1 of 3

0 of 12

12 rungs. A star at the top.

Omar plants beans in 2 rows with 3 plants in each row. How many bean plants are there?

How it is taught

0:00 of 3:19

An array is equal rows of the same size.

Area is the space inside a rectangle.

Read it: Equal groups, both ways

4 trays, 3 apples on each: skip count 3, 6, 9, 12, so 4 × 3 = 12. Share 12 apples onto 4 trays, and each tray gets 3: 12 ÷ 4 = 3.

See the equal groups: how many groups, and how many in each.
Skip count the groups to find the total.
Say it both ways: 4 × 3 = 12, and 12 ÷ 4 = 3.

Counting every apple from one works, but it is slow, and it gets slower as you add more trays.

Each tray holds the same three apples, so after the first tray you already know the next jump is three more.

Four jumps of three land on twelve, which is four groups of three without touching every apple.

When each tray has the same number, skip count the trays to find how many.

Adding four and three and saying seven apples in all.

Four trays of three is not four plus three — skip three, six, nine, twelve.

3 × 2 = ___ — 6. 3 trays with 2 apples in each: skip-count the trays — 2, 4, 6.

Area of a 6 ft × 4 ft garden

Here's a garden that's six feet wide and four feet long. What's its area?

Grade 3 · Using rows and columns to find area

Let's draw the garden as a rectangle.

The top side is six feet long.

The other side is four feet long.

We can split it into unit squares — each one is one square foot.

Look — there are four rows, with six squares in each row.

So we multiply: four times six.

Four times six equals twenty-four.

The area is twenty-four square feet. Great job!

Now you try. Find the area of this rectangle. What is the area?

What you see

While they climb, your page writes one true line to ask about tonight, and a short note each Sunday.

MayaGrade 3 · Mathematics

Did you know?

A chessboard has 64 squares — share them out between the 8 rows and each row holds exactly 8.

Today’s goal: 1 star — one skill mastered, every rung of its ladder climbed
Climbing now: Divide within 100

An example student.

MayaGrade 3 · Mathematics

Maya earned 2 stars this week — Interpret multiplication as equal groups, which took 6 answers over 3 days before its star landed 3 days ago and Multiply by 6, 7, 8 and 9. Next up: Divide within 100.

An example week.

More of the library

Every skill has a page

Standard

CCSS.3.OA.A.3

Use multiplication and division within 100 to solve word problems in situations involving equal groups, arrays, and measurement quantities

Grade 3

Quoted from the Common Core State Standards.

Where this sits

Comes after

Leads toNothing yet

What a star here means

A star here is the top of a twelve-rung ladder, in four blocks of equal length — three of facts and one of the skill used in a real question — where a right answer climbs one rung and a wrong one drops back to the start of the block, never below it. The star is kept for good. How we grade

All of Grade 3

This is one rung of 104 in Grade 3 mathematics, in the order they build on each other.

Practise this skill free

14 days of every skill, practice packets, Fluency sheets and up to four students. No card.

Start free