The sign says you have to be at least 1 meter tall to ride the go-carts. How can I find out if my little sister is tall enough to ride?

In this lesson you will learn how to measure by using centimeter and meter unit-lengths.

You already know how to measure by using customary units: yard, foot, and inch length-units, and that the smaller the unit, the more you will need.

A common misunderstanding is measuring with inches when you should be measuring with centimeters.

A centimeter length-unit is about the length of the fingernail on your pinky finger.   The base-ten block you use in your classroom to represent 1 is 1 centimeter on each edge. We use centimeters to measure smaller things, like pencils.

We use meters to measure larger things, like the length of a car and a person’s height. Can you imagine trying to measure a car using centimeter blocks?

There are 100 centimeters in a meter There are 100 centimeters in a meter. One way to remember this is there are 100 cents in a dollar.

Many rulers have inches AND centimeters Many rulers have inches AND centimeters. That’s one of the times when the “common misunderstanding” confusion sometimes happens. A meter stick looks like a yardstick with 100 hash marks showing the centimeters, and most tape measures also have centimeters and meters.

You use metric tools the same way you use the tools for customary measurement: place one end of the object at the end of the tool, or at the first mark, and read the number at the other end. This pencil is 14 centimeters long.

137 centimeters = 1 meter and 37 centimeters I used a tape measure to find my sister’s height. She is 137 centimeters tall! That sounds like a lot. Since 100 centimeters equal 1 meter, she is 37 centimeters taller than one meter. Go-carts, here we come!

In this lesson you have learned how to measure by using centimeter and meter length-units.