Worksheet Grade 4 Art & Music

Planning Tanager's Water Tower Mural: A Grid Math Worksheet

A grade 4 art-math worksheet where students size a water tower mural from a design grid, converting units and figuring paint, cost, and painting time.

Grade: Grade 4
Subject: Art & Music
Material: Worksheet
Time: 40 min
Prep: No prep
Materials: None

Standards

4.NBT.B.5 Common Core Math

Multiply a whole number of up to four digits by a one-digit whole number, and multiply two two-digit numbers, using strategies based on place value and the properties of operations. Illustrate and explain the calculation by using equations, rectangular arrays, and/or area models.

How this material aligns: Items 1, 2, and 4 multiply the grid's rows, columns, and square size to find the total squares and the real mural width and height in inches.

All materials for 4.NBT.B.5 →

4.MD.A.2 Common Core Math

Use the four operations to solve word problems involving distances, intervals of time, liquid volumes, masses of objects, and money, including problems involving simple fractions or decimals, and problems that require expressing measurements given in a larger unit in terms of a smaller unit.

How this material aligns: Items 3, 5, 8, and 10 solve measurement and money word problems, changing inches to feet and minutes to hours and finding the paint cost in dollars.

All materials for 4.MD.A.2 →

4.OA.A.3 Common Core Math

Solve multistep word problems posed with whole numbers and having whole-number answers using the four operations, including problems in which remainders must be interpreted. Represent these problems using equations with a letter standing for the unknown quantity. Assess the reasonableness of answers using mental computation and estimation strategies including rounding.

How this material aligns: Item 7 is a multistep problem whose remainder must be interpreted, since leftover coverage means the crew still has to buy one more whole can of paint.

All materials for 4.OA.A.3 →

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This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely, without attribution. Updated 2026-07-17.

Objectives

Students will multiply to find the total squares and the real size of a mural grid.
Students will convert inches to feet and minutes to hours.
Students will interpret a remainder to decide how many paint cans to buy.

Vocabulary

Key words: mural, grid, convert, remainder

Teacher overview

The fictional town of Tanager is painting a mural on its water tower, and the art crew planned it on a design grid of 8 rows and 12 columns of squares. On the real tower, each grid square becomes 9 inches wide and 9 inches tall. This worksheet has students turn the small plan into real measurements, then figure out the paint, the cost, and the time. A common misconception to watch for: students often think they can buy part of a paint can, so item 7 makes them round up to whole cans because a store sells only full cans.

Planning Tanager's Water Tower Mural: A Grid Math Worksheet — Grade 4 Art & Music

Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Student Worksheet

Tanager is a fictional town. Its water tower will get a new mural. The art crew drew the design on a grid. The grid has 8 rows and 12 columns of squares. On the real tower, each square is 9 inches wide and 9 inches tall.

How many squares are in the whole grid? Multiply the rows by the columns.
The mural is 12 squares across. Each square is 9 inches wide. How many inches wide is the real mural?
Change the width to feet. Remember that 12 inches make 1 foot.
The mural is 8 squares tall. Each square is 9 inches tall. How many inches tall is the real mural?
Change the height to feet. Remember that 12 inches make 1 foot.
The mural is 9 feet wide and 6 feet tall. How many square feet is that? Multiply the width by the height.
One can of paint covers 30 square feet. The mural is 54 square feet. How many cans must the crew buy? Explain why you rounded the way you did.
Each can of paint costs 18 dollars. The crew buys 2 cans. How much will the paint cost?
One fourth of the 96 squares will be painted white. How many squares will be white?
Painting one row takes 15 minutes. There are 8 rows. How many minutes will the crew paint? Then change your answer to hours.

From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.

Answer Key

Answer: 96 squares. Multiply the rows by the columns: 8 × 12 = 96 squares.
Answer: 108 inches. Multiply the 12 squares across by 9 inches each: 12 × 9 = 108 inches.
Answer: 9 feet. Divide the inches by 12 because 12 inches make 1 foot: 108 ÷ 12 = 9 feet.
Answer: 72 inches. Multiply the 8 squares tall by 9 inches each: 8 × 9 = 72 inches.
Answer: 6 feet. Divide the inches by 12: 72 ÷ 12 = 6 feet.
Answer: 54 square feet. Multiply the width by the height: 9 × 6 = 54 square feet.
Answer: 2 cans. One can covers 30 square feet, and two cans cover 60 square feet, which is enough for 54. One can would cover only 30 square feet, so the crew rounds up to 2 whole cans because a store sells only full cans.
Answer: 36 dollars. Two cans at 18 dollars each is 2 × 18 = 36 dollars.
Answer: 24 squares. One fourth of 96 is 96 ÷ 4 = 24 squares.
Answer: 2 hours. First multiply 8 rows by 15 minutes: 8 × 15 = 120 minutes. Then change minutes to hours by dividing by 60: 120 ÷ 60 = 2 hours.

Differentiation

Support

Give these students a printed inch ruler and a hundreds chart, and let them check their answers to items 1 through 6 with a calculator. Provide the reminder "divide by 12 for feet" and "divide by 60 for hours" on a small card taped to the desk.

Extension

Ask students to design their own grid with a different number of rows and columns, keep the 9-inch squares, and work out the new width, height, and square feet. Then have them figure out how many paint cans their new mural would need.

ELL supports

Pre-teach row, column, convert, and remainder with a small drawn grid labeled in the student's home language where possible. Pair each word problem with a simple picture of the step, and allow students to show the multiplication with an array before writing the answer.

Extensions

Take the class outside to look at a real water tower or standpipe if one is visible, and estimate its height in the students' own body-lengths. Compare that estimate with the 6-foot mural height from item 5 to build a sense of how large a real tower is next to a mural panel.