Lesson 8

Meters and Kilometers

Lesson Purpose

The purpose of this lesson is for students to describe the multiplicative relationship between kilometers and meters and express the former in terms of the latter.

Lesson Narrative

Previously, students learned that 1 meter is 100 times as long as 1 centimeter. They converted measurements in meters to centimeters. In this lesson, they extend their understanding of metric units of length to include kilometers.

Students develop a sense for 1,000 meters by reasoning multiplicatively about shorter measurements in meters. For example, they see that 1,000 meters is 20 times the length of a 50-meter pool, 10 times the length of a 100-meter track, and so on. In doing so, students develop an awareness of 1 kilometer as 1,000 times as long as 1 meter.

Students use tables and what they know about multiples of 1,000 to support their reasoning as they multiply whole numbers by 1,000 to convert kilometers to meters (MP7).

  • Action and Expression
  • MLR7

Activity 1: How Long is One Kilometer?

Learning Goals

Teacher Facing

  • Describe the multiplicative relationship between kilometers and meters.
  • Express kilometers in terms of meters.

Student Facing

  • Let’s explore measurements in meters and kilometers.

Required Materials

Materials to Gather

Materials to Copy

  • How Long is One Kilometer?

Required Preparation

CCSS Standards

Building On

Addressing

Lesson Timeline

Warm-up 10 min
Activity 1 20 min
Activity 2 15 min
Lesson Synthesis 10 min
Cool-down 5 min

Teacher Reflection Questions

What part of the lesson went really well in terms of helping students reason about the size of 1 kilometer and its relationship to 1 meter? What part of the task supported this reasoning?

Suggested Centers

  • How Close? (1–5), Stage 6: Multiply to 3,000 (Addressing)
  • Compare (1–5), Stage 3: Multiply within 100 (Supporting)

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