The worksheet generator on this page produces money word problems with real, freshly randomised numbers — 20 of them per sheet by default — plus the answer key a parent or teacher needs to mark it quickly. A typical problem from the sheet in front of you is “Cleo buys a book for $11.51 and a pen for $5.29. Total cost?”, which works out to $16.80; another is “One notebook costs $4.35. How much do 5 notebooks cost?”, giving $21.75.
‘New set of problems’ opens the generator in its own tab. There you can change the problem count and turn the answer key on or off. ‘Print or save as PDF’ opens the print dialog — choose Save as PDF in the printer list to keep the file. The sheet fits US Letter and A4, and the answer key prints on its own page.
Answers should carry their units. A number without a unit is not an answer to a word problem, however correct the arithmetic.
Because the names, objects and numbers regenerate, the child cannot recognise a problem type by its wording alone.
Key words help and mislead in roughly equal measure. 'Altogether' usually means add and sometimes does not, so the child still has to picture the situation.
These problems use amounts under $20, so the reading, not the arithmetic, is the challenge.
Work of this kind is commonly aligned with the problem-solving expectations for this grade; schools outside the US meet the same skill at roughly the same age, which is why these money word problems travel well.
| # | Problem | Answer | What to check |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cleo buys a book for $11.51 and a pen for $5.29. Total cost? | $16.80 | Watch for: answering a different question |
| 2 | One notebook costs $4.35. How much do 5 notebooks cost? | $21.75 | Check: grabbing the numbers and guessing the operation |
| 3 | Omar pays with $20.00 for an item costing $2.97. How much change? | $17.03 | Look at: being thrown by unfamiliar names or objects |
| 4 | One notebook costs $9.69. How much do 6 notebooks cost? | $58.14 | Ask about: dropping the units |
| 5 | Theo pays with $10.00 for an item costing $9.53. How much change? | $0.47 | Watch for: missing a step in a two-step problem |
| 6 | Cleo buys a book for $13.92 and a pen for $11.51. Total cost? | $25.43 | Check: not checking whether the answer is sensible |
A good first problem to do together is “Cleo buys a book for $11.51 and a pen for $5.29. Total cost?”, which comes out at $16.80. Do “Cleo buys a book for $11.51 and a pen for $5.29. Total cost?” once with the child narrating, then hand over the pencil and start the clock on the other 20 problems.
Work “One notebook costs $9.69. How much do 6 notebooks cost?” out loud as a demonstration. It gives $58.14. Children who hear “One notebook costs $9.69. How much do 6 notebooks cost?” reasoned through once at the start of a session make noticeably fewer errors in the ten minutes that follow.
The answer key is generated with the worksheet, not written by hand, so it always matches the sheet in front of you — “Cleo buys a book for $11.51 and a pen for $5.29. Total cost?” is listed as $16.80, “One notebook costs $4.35. How much do 5 notebooks cost?” as $21.75, and so on down the page.
Keys are produced by the same code that produces the questions, so a mismatch between question and answer is not possible on these sheets.
The sheet is laid out to fit one page on both US Letter and A4. Leave the browser scaling at 100% and turn headers and footers off, and the 20 problems land inside the margins on either paper size.
To save these money word problems instead of printing them, choose 'Save as PDF' in the printer list. You get the worksheet and the answer key as a single PDF, on Letter or A4 depending on your printer settings.
One sheet of money word problems a day for two weeks will tell you more about where a child working at this level actually stands than any single long assessment.
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Free printable math worksheets from a working math academy director in Korea. Problems come from our own code, not from a published workbook. Every sheet prints on US Letter or A4 with its answer key. All worksheets · Worksheet generator · Korean site
Last updated: 2026-09-13