Purpose: The main aim of the current paper is to find a numerical plan for hydraulic fracturing problem with application in extracting natural gases and oil. Design/methodology/approach: First, time discretization is accomplished via Crank-Nicolson and semi-implicit techniques. At the second step, a high-order finite element method using quadratic triangular elements is proposed to derive the spatial discretization. The efficiency and time consuming of both obtained schemes will be investigated. In addition to the popular uniform mesh refinement strategy, an adaptive mesh refinement strategy will be employed to reduce computational costs. Findings: Numerical results show a good agreement between the two schemes as well as the efficiency of the employed techniques to capture acceptable patterns of the model. In central single-crack mode, the experimental results demonstrate that maximal values of displacements in x- and y- directions are 0.1 and 0.08, respectively. They occur around both ends of the line and sides directly next to the line where pressure takes impact. Moreover, the pressure of injected fluid almost gained its initial value, i.e. 3,000 inside and close to the notch. Further, the results for non-central single-crack mode and bifurcated crack mode are depicted. In central single-crack mode and square computational area with a uniform mesh, computational times corresponding to the numerical schemes based on the high order finite element method for spatial discretization and Crank-Nicolson as well as semi-implicit techniques for temporal discretizations are 207.19s and 97.47s, respectively, with 2,048 elements, final time T = 0.2 and time step size τ = 0.01. Also, the simulations effectively illustrate a further decrease in computational time when the method is equipped with an adaptive mesh refinement strategy. The computational cost is reduced to 4.23s when the governed model is solved with the numerical scheme based on the adaptive high order finite element method and semi-implicit technique for spatial and temporal discretizations, respectively. Similarly, in other samples, the reduction of computational cost has been shown. Originality/value: This is the first time that the high-order finite element method is employed to solve the model investigated in the current paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]