Adding and Subtraction Word Problems | School Bus Math Grades 1-5 with Key

Adding and subtraction word problems on the school bus

These adding and subtraction word problems ride along on the school bus. The packet is a 13 page worksheet with 80 questions for grades 1 to 5 about passengers, stops, routes, miles and time.

Students add and subtract passenger counts, use simple multiplication for seats and wheels, work out how long a ride takes and finish with short answer route problems.

Teachers who need adding and subtraction word problems for back to school will find four sections of 20 questions here, and the packet comes with an answer key, an answer sheet and a lesson plan.

What’s on the pages

The worksheet has four sections of 20 questions each, and each one has its own heading and directions.

• Passenger counts on the bus: 10 multiple choice and 10 true or false questions, such as 15 boys and 13 girls riding the bus, or 4 students on each of 5 benches.
• School bus Number Bank: students complete sentences, such as 11 students at Stop One plus 22 at Stop Two, or 4 buses with 4 wheels each. Not all of the numbers are used.
• Bus travel and schedules: 10 multiple choice and 10 true or false questions, such as Bus A travelling 15 miles and Bus B travelling 22 miles, or 60 minutes of ride time being 2 hours.
• Bus route word problems: short answers, such as an 18 mile route driven twice a day, or a fleet of 10 large and 5 small buses.

The setting is one most students know well, so the numbers feel real from the first question.

What’s in the download

• Student worksheet: 13 pages
• Answer key: 15 pages, with a short explanation after each answer
• Answer sheet: 4 pages
• Lesson plan: 1 page

The four parts add up to 33 pages, and everything comes as PDF.

How to use these adding and subtraction word problems

The lesson plan is set for 60 minutes. Its objectives are to use addition, subtraction and simple multiplication in school bus situations, to work out time, distance and passenger totals correctly, and to use a Number Bank to choose the right number for a statement.

The plan opens with a 10 minute warm-up discussion about bus routes and counting passengers. The teacher then guides students through Section 1 on addition and subtraction and explains Section 2, showing how to pick numbers from the Number Bank and noting that some are distractors. Students go on to the travel and schedule questions and the short answer route problems.

The materials list the printed worksheets, pencils and erasers, and play counters or blocks to show passenger counts.

Counters make it easy to act out a bus stop, where students add the riders who get on and take away the ones who get off.

The answer sheet keeps the worksheet clean for reuse, and the answer key gives a short explanation after every answer.

Teachers who look for school bus math activities or back to school math will find both here, and the adding and subtraction word problems with answer key pages lets a helper check the work in minutes.

Where it fits

Use it in the first weeks of school, for math centers, a transportation theme, homework or a sub plan. Homeschool families can work through one section a day.

Take a look at the preview pages before you buy, so you can see the worksheet, the answer key and the answer sheet.

For more practice, browse the math worksheets, the wider set of printable worksheets or the whole shop.

Many teachers use these adding and subtraction word problems as a baseline and repeat the set after a few weeks to see growth.

A class bus map drawn on the board, with stops and distances, gives students a picture to refer to while they work.

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