This is a new Common Core item from PARCC (grade level and link to be revealed at the bottom of this post).
How do your students remember metric conversions? My favorite was found in the South Bronx on a middle school teacher’s desk while I was observing a student teacher: Kings Have Diamonds Man Diamonds Cost Money. A more popular one is shown below. The metric system is so brilliant because it uses base 10 and why do we use Base 10 anyway? Click here for info on the history of bases.
King Kilo
Henry Hecto
Died Deka
By Base (meter gram liter)
Drinking deci
Chocolate centi
Milk milli
The table below shows the metric prefix and the matching mnemonic word.
| kilo — | Kangaroos |
| hecto — | Hop |
| deca — | Down |
| meter — | My |
| (Change meter to any unit) | |
| deci — | Driveway |
| centi — | Carrying |
| millimeter — | M&Ms |
Here is the link to this item: http://parcc.pearson.com/resources/Practice_Tests/Grade_5/Math/PC194817-001_5MTHTB_PT_PARCC_G4_HS_TB.pdf (5th grade)
B and C are the correct answers:
B) 7cm is like 7 cents which is .07
C) 1000m = 1km so 7000m = 7km
Math Confidence by Robin the Math Lady 