Convert Measurement Units Within the Same System

Students learn the conversion factors between units in the same system (e.g., 1 foot = 12 inches, 1 kilogram = 1,000 grams, 1 hour = 60 minutes) and use multiplication or division to convert from larger units to smaller units and vice versa.

Try three of them

Real questions from this skill, graded here. No account, and nothing is saved.

Grade 4 · Measurement Units & Conversions · question 1 of 3

0 of 20

20 rungs. A star at the top.

pints	2	4
quarts	1

4 pints = ___ quarts.

Your answer:

How it is taught

0:00 of 3:28

A measurement can be renamed with another unit.

Bigger units to smaller units means multiply.

Smaller units to bigger units means divide.

Read it: Every row is the same times

1 foot is 12 inches, 2 feet are 24 inches and 3 feet are 36 inches. Every row of the table is times 12, so 4 feet are 4 × 12 = 48 inches.

Find how many small units make 1 big unit: 1 foot is 12 inches.
From the big unit to the small one there are more of them: multiply by 12.
From the small unit to the big one there are fewer: 72 inches ÷ 12 = 6 feet.

A foot is longer than an inch, so it takes 12 inches to make the same length as 1 foot.

Each foot more adds 12 inches more, so every row of the table grows by 12.

The table works both ways: read down to multiply, and read up to divide.

Multiply by the factor to change to the smaller unit, and divide by it to change to the bigger unit.

Adding 12 instead of multiplying, and saying 4 feet are 16 inches.

Every foot is 12 inches, so 4 feet are 4 groups of 12: 48 inches.

20 quarts = ___ gallons — 5. 4 quarts make 1 gallon, so 20 of them make 20 ÷ 4: 5.

4 feet = ? inches

Imagine a ribbon that's four feet long. How many inches is that?

Here's our ribbon — four feet from end to end.

Remember our key fact: one foot equals twelve inches.

We're going from feet, a bigger unit, to inches, a smaller unit. That means we multiply.

We have four feet, and each foot is twelve inches, so we calculate four times twelve.

Four times twelve equals forty-eight.

Don't forget the unit — forty-eight inches.

Four feet is forty-eight inches. You can use this trick for any unit in the same system!

Grade 4 · Converting feet to inches

What you see

While they climb, your page writes one true line to ask about tonight, and a short note each Sunday.

MayaGrade 3 · Mathematics

Did you know?

A chessboard has 64 squares — share them out between the 8 rows and each row holds exactly 8.

Today’s goal: 1 star — one skill mastered, every rung of its ladder climbed
Climbing now: Divide within 100

An example student.

MayaGrade 3 · Mathematics

Maya earned 2 stars this week — Interpret multiplication as equal groups, which took 6 answers over 3 days before its star landed 3 days ago and Multiply by 6, 7, 8 and 9. Next up: Divide within 100.

An example week.

More of the library

Every skill has a page

Standard

CCSS.4.MD.A.1

Know relative sizes of measurement units within one system of units; record measurement equivalents in a two-column table

Grade 4

Quoted from the Common Core State Standards.

Where this sits

Comes after

Understand Relative Sizes of Measurement Units

Leads to

What a star here means

A star here is the top of a twenty-rung ladder, in four blocks of equal length — three of facts and one of the skill used in a real question — where a right answer climbs one rung and a wrong one drops back to the start of the block, never below it. The star is kept for good. How we grade

All of Grade 4

This is one rung of 71 in Grade 4 mathematics, in the order they build on each other.

Practise this skill free

14 days of every skill, practice packets, Fluency sheets and up to four students. No card.

Start free