Customary unit conversion worksheets

Twelve inches in a foot, sixteen ounces in a pound, four quarts in a gallon. None of those is a power of ten, and that is exactly why the customary system is the harder half of the standard — free printable sheets with an answer key.

Customary unit conversion
Customary unit conversion worksheet — in/ft/yd, oz/lb, c/pt/qt/gal, free printable with answer key

The answer key prints on a separate page.

What's on this sheet

Metric conversion is a point moving: 3 m is 300 cm because the factor is a hundred and every metric factor is a power of ten. The customary ladders have nothing to lean on — 12, 3, 16, 2 and 4 — so each one is a real multiplication or division a child has to know and carry out. The standard names both systems, and a site that prints only the metric half is doing only the easy one.

Why this sheet works

Three ladders, each on its own sheet. Length runs inches to feet to yards; weight runs ounces to pounds; capacity runs cups to pints to quarts to gallons, which is the one children mix up because three of its four steps are doubling and the last is not.

How this one works

204 in = ? ft

in → ftbigger unit, smaller number
1 ft =12 in
204 ÷ 12 =17
17 ft
  1. One ft is bigger than one in, and it takes FEWER of a big thing to make the same amount. So the number has to get smaller — which means dividing.
  2. There are 12 in in one ft, so that is the number to divide by.
  3. 204 ÷ 12 = 17, so 204 in is 17 ft. Check the direction held: the number got smaller, which is what a bigger unit does.