Unit Conversion: Length, Mass and Capacity
Lessons in this chapter
About Unit Conversion: Length, Mass and Capacity
Measurement in 5th grade is conversion again, now with multi-step conversions and the decimal arithmetic to handle them.
Convert Units of Length Measurement, Convert Units of Mass and Weight and Convert Units of Capacity each cover both systems. What is new since 4th grade is that conversions can chain, so going from millimeters to kilometers passes through two steps rather than one.
Metric conversions are now decimal arithmetic. Converting 2,450 grams to kilograms gives 2.45 kg, which means dividing by 1,000 and placing the decimal point correctly, so the decimal chapters earlier in the year are doing the work here.
The direction check still catches most errors: converting to a smaller unit gives a bigger number. A child who converts 2.45 kg and gets 0.00245 g has gone the wrong way, and asking whether the answer should grow or shrink finds that before the arithmetic is even checked.
All three lessons open as a 5th grade math worksheet in the page. Convert Units of Length Measurement, Convert Units of Mass and Weight and Convert Units of Capacity each set conversion problems, worked one at a time and marked as you answer them. They are free to try, with no login needed for your first 3.
Frequently asked questions
Convert Units of Length Measurement, Convert Units of Mass and Weight and Convert Units of Capacity each cover both systems. What is new since 4th grade is that conversions can chain, so millimeters to kilometers passes through two steps, and that metric conversions are now decimal arithmetic: 2,450 grams becomes 2.45 kilograms. The direction check still catches most errors, since converting to a smaller unit always gives a bigger number. The chapter sits in the Common Core domain Measurement and Data (5.MD).
Divide by 1,000, giving 2.45 kg. Metric conversions are decimal arithmetic, which is why the decimal chapters come earlier in the year.
Converting to a smaller unit gives a bigger number, so multiply. Converting to a larger unit gives a smaller number, so divide. Checking the direction first catches most errors.
One that passes through an intermediate unit, like millimeters to meters to kilometers. 5th grade is where conversions start chaining.
The conversions can chain, and the answers are now decimals rather than whole numbers, so it needs the decimal arithmetic from earlier in the year.
Because every one is a power of ten, so it is a shift of the decimal point. Customary conversions have no pattern and must be memorized.