Main content
5th grade
Course: 5th grade > Unit 14
Lesson 4: Converting US Customary unitsUS Customary units of length review (in, ft, yd, & mi)
Review the size of inches, feet, yards, and miles and how to convert between them. Then, try some practice problems.
Summary of customary units of distance
Inches | Feet | Yards | Miles |
---|---|---|---|
What is distance?
Distance measures length. For example, the length of a snake is how long the snake is.
In the US customary system of measurement, the most common units of distance are inches, feet, yards, and miles.
How big are customary units of distance?
The length of a quarter is about inch.
The length of a man's shoe is about foot.
The length of a guitar is about yard.
The length of a runway at a large airport is about mile.
Want to learn more about customary units of distance? Check out this video.
Converting larger units to smaller units
To convert larger units to smaller units we multiply the number of larger units by the green conversion factor for the appropriate smaller units.
Example: Converting feet to inches
Converting smaller units to larger units
To convert smaller units to larger units we divide the number of smaller units by the green conversion factor for the appropriate larger units.
Example: Converting inches to feet
Example: Converting yards to miles
Want to learn more about converting between customary units of distance? Check out this video.
Practice set 2: Converting distance units
Want to try more problems like this? Check out these exercises:
Convert larger units to smaller units
Converting between units
Convert larger units to smaller units
Converting between units
Want to join the conversation?
- the fastest way to find how many in in a mile is to find how many feet are in mile and multiply that by 12.(15 votes)
- how do i know how much a mile is?(2 votes)
- This is something that you will probably want to memorize. A mile is 5280 feet.
Once you have that in your memory, you can then use math to determine how many yards a mile is and all sorts of other measurements.(15 votes)
- how a nice educational program(8 votes)
- Thank You! this is really helpful but is there a faster way or less confusing way(5 votes)
- I find the metric system is easier and faster, because its all based on tens(4 votes)
- I am from Australia and never use "miles" for driving, converting or just about ANYTHING!
Anything I should know about when using miles for anything?
Thanks, sincerely Patrick.(8 votes)- uh miles are the same thing as kilo i think btw why u so formal(0 votes)
- Is there anything smaller than a millemeter(4 votes)
- The micro-, nano-, picto-, and femto- are all prefixes that indicate sizes smaller than the milli-.(9 votes)
- How did they come up with this system of measurement?(7 votes)
- how is 98 cups = to 49 pints.(8 votes)
- if there are two cups in one pint, and you have 49 pints you would do 49 x 2 which is 98.(0 votes)
- how many yards are in 14 miles(6 votes)
- the answer is 24640 because of 1760 yards in a mile and
1760 x 14 = 24640(4 votes)
- if there is anything smaller than a millimeter would it be like a billionth of a meter(5 votes)
- millimeter = 1/1,000 meter.
micrometer = 1/1,000,000 meter.
nanometer = 1/1,000,000,000 meter.
and there is no limit to how many units there should be. whenever we find a length in the real world that we need to express a lot of times and we don't have a unit that's close to this length, we can create a new unit of length.(0 votes)