Mathematics : Volume in Imperial System of Measurement

Alright. I know this is not relevant in the Singapore context. So why am I teaching this? Ops, I mean... why am I learning this?

Reason 1
Our Miquon Lab sheets (from the US) has about 10 pages that teaches the US Imperial System for measuring volume. What a waste not to use them?!!

Reason 2
I myself do not know these units and their conversions. So doing the Lab sheets with my boys will give me a chance to learn! (I love Miquon for this quality... No need to have anybody teach you. You discover the concept by just doing the Lab sheets!) I was quite blur when we were living in the US and everything on the supermarket shelves were in gallons and quarts and pints and cups!

Reason 3
No harm done if we should know it, right? I won't be concentrating on these later (of course I will be teaching the metric units), so an introduction would allow my boys to see that there are other units of measurement, other than millilitres and litres, for volume.

Reason 4
Conversion from gallons to quarts to pints to cups can be challenging. The boys had to put their knowledge of fractions to good use.

Try These...
These are some sums in our Miquon Lab sheets. Try them!

one pint = _____ gallons = _____ quart = _____ cups

or

3 pt. = 1 qt. + ____ pt.

or

3 c. + 4 c. = ____ c. = _____ pt + 1 c.



It's funny that D commented, "Hey, but some cups are bigger and some cups are smaller!" :-D
I was glad he made this interesting observation. This confusion comes with using such a common terminology as "cup". I had to explain to them that we are refering to a particular standard cup.

However, I later learnt from dear hubby that a US gallon is actually different from a UK gallon. Hur??!!!

Ok, I won't keep you in suspense... here are the solutions to the sums above:
1/8, 1/2, 2
1
4, 1 1/2
Did you get them? :-)


Visit Rumphius Mathematics Webpage to find out more about how we approach Mathematics in our homeschool.