Weight10 marks
Name: Date:
Read the pointer against the scale, then write how much each one weighs.
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Read dial scales worksheets
A kitchen dial turns weight into an angle. This printable worksheet shows six 1 kg scales with the pointer resting at different marks and asks how much each one weighs, in grams.
If they get stuck
Read dial scales
The answer key prints on a separate page.
What's on this sheet
Reading a dial is not the same skill as reading a ruler, and that is why this page exists beside the beaker and the thermometer rather than instead of one. Those run up a line, where higher plainly means more; a dial runs round, so a pointer near the foot of the face can mean almost a full kilogram and the child has to follow the marks rather than trust the height. The graduations stop short at the bottom, which is where a real scale's stop sits and what says the pointer cannot carry on round to zero.
Why this sheet works
The six dials rest at different weights across the range, and the pointer always lands on a printed mark so there is an answer to read rather than one to estimate. Ten marks to the kilogram keeps each step a round hundred grams — enough to need counting, not so fine that a first attempt is guesswork. The pointer is drawn short of the numbers on purpose: a needle lying across the figure it points at hides the answer at the moment it is wanted. A separate answer page prints each weight beside the same dial.
How this one works
Read the dial
goes up to:1000g
gaps:10
one gap:100g
look straight on
100g per gap
gaps counted:9
count in 100s:100, 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, 700, 800, 900
- Work out one gap before anything else. The dial reads round to 1000g, shared over 10 equal gaps — so one gap is 100g. Not one — that is the assumption this whole topic is built to break.
- Read where the needle points, straight on — looking at a dial from the side moves the needle by a mark or two.
- Count the gaps up to it: 9. Now count those gaps in 100s — 100, 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, 700, 800, 900 — so it reads 900g. Counting the marks alone would have given 9, which is the wrong answer that looks right.