Lesson 7 Meters and Centimeters

- Let’s explore lengths in meters and centimeters.

Warm-up Notice and Wonder: Big Bug, Little Bug

What do you notice? What do you wonder?

image of a ruler and two bugs. Ruler, length 12 units. Bug below has length about 1 unit. Bug above has length more than 12 units.

Activity 1 How Long is One Meter?

Problem 1

Use the centimeter paper to build a strip that is 100 centimeters long. You will need scissors and tape.
If you do it precisely, your paper strip will be 1 meter long.
List 5 items in the classroom that you think are about 1 meter long.
Then, use your paper strip to check how close your prediction is to 1 meter.

Problem 2

Decide whether each of the following is more than 1 meter, less than 1 meter, or about 1 meter.

The stick insect in the warm-up activity
The step you make when walking
The step you make when running
Your arm span

Activity 2 In and Around the School

Priya took some measurements in meters and recorded them in the table, but she made some errors when converting them to centimeters. She also left out one measurement.

	measurement in meters	measurement in centimeter
a. height of door	$2$	$200$
b. height of hallway	$3$	$30$
c. width of hallway	$5$	$500$
d. length of gym	$18$	$180$
e. length of hallway	$27$	$2, 700$
f. length of playground	$50$

Find and correct Priya’s conversion errors. Be prepared to explain how you know.
Fill in the length of the playground in centimeters. Write an equation to represent your thinking.

Practice Problem

Problem 1

Select all measurements that are greater than 1 meter.

the width of a paper clip
the length of your math workbook
the width of the classroom
the height of the door in the classroom
the length of a finger