Third Grade Christmas Math Word Problems

Word problems and problem-solving questions help students to put the computations into authentic practice. Select questions that require a higher level thinking. It's also helpful to use questions that have more than one strategy available to solve them. Let students think about the way they solve their questions and let them draw pictures or use manipulatives to support their own thinking and logic.

Try these Christmas-themed word problems for third graders to stay in the spirit of things in class:

1. Ivan is putting bulbs on the Christmas tree. He has already put 74 bulbs on the tree but he has 225. How many more bulbs does he have to put on the tree?

2. Amber has 36 candy canes to share among herself and 3 friends. How many candy canes will each of them get?

3. Ken’s new advent calendar has 1 chocolate for the 1st day, 2 chocolates on the 2nd day, 3 chocolates on the 3rd day, 4 chocolates on the 4th day and so on. How many chocolates will he have eaten by the 12th day?

4. It takes 90 days to save enough money to do some Christmas shopping. Estimate how many months that is.

5. Your string of Christmas lights has 12 bulbs on it, but 1/4 of the bulbs don’t work. How many bulbs do you have to buy to replace the ones that don’t work?

6. For your Christmas party, you have 5 mini pizzas to share with 4 friends. You’re cutting the pizzas in half, how much will each friend get? How can you make sure the leftovers get shared equally?

Print the PDF:  Christmas Word Problems Worksheet