Measurement conversion chart
A measurement conversion chart lists how the units relate: 12 inches in a foot, 100 centimeters in a meter, 16 ounces in a pound, 60 minutes in an hour. It is the reference a child keeps beside a conversion problem until the facts are known.
Free printable PDF, 2nd grade to 5th grade.
One page, black and white, prints the same every time.
What is on the sheet
Length
| Customary | Metric |
|---|---|
| 1 foot (ft) = 12 inches (in) | 1 centimeter (cm) = 10 millimeters (mm) |
| 1 yard (yd) = 3 feet = 36 inches | 1 meter (m) = 100 centimeters |
| 1 mile (mi) = 1,760 yards = 5,280 feet | 1 kilometer (km) = 1,000 meters |
Weight and mass
| Customary | Metric |
|---|---|
| 1 pound (lb) = 16 ounces (oz) | 1 gram (g) = 1,000 milligrams (mg) |
| 1 ton (T) = 2,000 pounds | 1 kilogram (kg) = 1,000 grams |
Capacity
| Customary | Metric |
|---|---|
| 1 cup (c) = 8 fluid ounces (fl oz) | 1 liter (L) = 1,000 milliliters (mL) |
| 1 pint (pt) = 2 cups | 1 kiloliter (kL) = 1,000 liters |
| 1 quart (qt) = 2 pints = 4 cups | |
| 1 gallon (gal) = 4 quarts = 16 cups |
Time
| Unit | Equals |
|---|---|
| 1 minute (min) | 60 seconds (s) |
| 1 hour (h) | 60 minutes |
| 1 day | 24 hours |
| 1 week | 7 days |
| 1 year | 12 months, 52 weeks, 365 days (366 in a leap year) |
How the chart is organised
Four tables: length, weight, capacity and time. The first three put the customary units on the left and the metric units on the right, so a child sees that each system has its own ladder and that the metric ladder always climbs by tens, hundreds and thousands. Time has one system, so it gets one column of equivalents.
The chart does not convert between the two systems. An inch is about 2.54 centimeters, but elementary standards ask children to work within one system at a time, and mixing the two on a reference sheet invites the wrong kind of question.
Which rows matter in which grade
Second grade measures in inches, feet, centimeters and meters and needs only the first length rows. Third grade adds grams, kilograms and liters and tells time to the minute. Fourth grade converts larger units to smaller within a system, a mile to feet or a kilogram to grams, which is when the whole chart earns its place on the desk. Fifth grade converts in both directions, including fractions and decimals of a unit.
A useful exercise is to cover one column and ask the child to rebuild it, then to say which facts were easy because the metric prefix gave them away.
Common questions
- Why are the customary and metric units not converted to each other?
- Elementary standards keep the two systems separate; converting between them comes with decimals in middle school. Keeping them apart keeps the chart honest about what a 4th grader is asked to know.
- Are the abbreviations the standard ones?
- Yes: in, ft, yd, mi, oz, lb, T, c, pt, qt, gal, and the metric symbols mm, cm, m, km, mg, g, kg, mL, L, kL, which are the same everywhere.