Metres and Centimetres: Free Printable Worksheet for Year 3

Metres and Centimetres is a free printable worksheet for Year 3 (ages 7 to 8), in Key Stage 2. Change between m and cm It comes from the Mini Minds Hub, a growing library of free printables from Jaques of London, the British games and toy company that has been making games for families since 1795.

It is two A4 pages. Page 1 is the activity for children. Page 2 is for the grown-up: it has notes on how to use the sheet, help for children who find it hard, a stretch idea, and the answers. Print it at home or in the classroom. Black and white printing works well.

What is on the sheet

This worksheet includes numbered questions with space to answer.

A look at what children will meet:

• 2 m = ___ cm
• 5 m = ___ cm
• 3 m 40 cm = ___ cm
• 600 cm = ___ m
• 1 m 75 cm = ___ cm
• 250 cm = ___ m ___ cm
• 4 m 5 cm = ___ cm
• 720 cm = ___ m ___ cm

Who this is for

Year 3 (ages 7 to 8) in Key Stage 2.

Key Stage 2 covers Years 3 to 6, ages 7 to 11. Children are widening what they know and getting better at explaining their thinking, so activities that ask them to reason, not only recall, are especially useful. Use it at home, in class, on a rainy afternoon or at a family gathering.

What children practise

• Converting units
• Times by 100
• Measures

Converting between metres and centimetres using 1 m = 100 cm.

Learning focus and curriculum link

Subject: Maths. Key stage: Key Stage 2. It supports the subject at this level through short, focused practice.

This sheet is a practice and play activity. It supports classroom learning and is not a replacement for it.

How to use it

1. Print both pages. Page 1 is for the child. Keep page 2 for the grown-up.
2. Pencil only. One child working alone, about 10 minutes.
3. Work through the activity together the first time. Talk about each choice.
4. Check against the notes on page 2 and the answers.
5. Come back to it another day. Repeating a familiar activity builds confidence.

If it feels too hard

Lay a metre stick or a 100 cm strip of paper next to the sheet and count along it.

To stretch confident children

Ask: how many cm are in 12 m? Then make up two questions for a partner.

Make it a game

Measure a door and a bed at home and write each length in both m and cm.

Tips for parents and teachers

• Print on plain A4 paper. Black and white printing works too.
• Work through it together the first time, then let children try alone.
• Praise effort and thinking, not only correct answers.

A screen-free maths activity for Year 3

Children spend a lot of time on screens. This is a screen-free maths activity that needs only paper and a pencil. It works as quiet time after school, a rainy day activity, a holiday boredom buster or a calm moment before bed. Screen-free learning gives eyes a rest and gets children talking, thinking and writing by hand.

Free maths resources for teachers

Teachers can use this worksheet as a starter, a plenary, an early finisher task, a supply teacher resource, a homework task or a table activity. It needs no preparation beyond printing. The learning focus and skills are listed above so you can match it to your planning, and page 2 gives support and stretch ideas for mixed ability groups.

Maths ideas for parents at home

You do not need to be a teacher to use this. Read the sheet through, sit with your child for the first go and let them lead. Short bursts of ten to fifteen minutes work better than long sessions. If you are looking for free maths worksheets for Year 3, or simple home learning for the weekend or school holidays, this is a good place to start.

Home education and tutoring

Home educators and tutors can print this as part of a wider maths plan. It pairs well with books, outdoor play and everyday talk. Because the sheet is free and printable, you can use it again for brothers and sisters or for revision a few weeks later.

Why it helps children learn

Hands-on, paper based activities slow learning down in a good way. Children read carefully, think before they answer and see their own progress on the page. Games and challenges add a reason to keep going. That mix of play and practice is why printable activities like this are popular with parents, teachers and home educators.

Why metres and centimetres matter

Length is one of the first measures children meet outside the classroom. They measure their height, a doorway, a piece of string or the distance they jumped. At around Year 3 they stop only measuring and start moving between units. A length of 3 m 40 cm is the same length as 340 cm. Seeing that these are two ways of saying one thing is a real step forward.

The conversion has a very friendly rule behind it: 1 m is 100 cm. That makes metres and centimetres a gentle first place to learn that the same amount can be written in more than one way. Later, children will do the same with kilograms and grams, litres and millilitres, and pounds and pence. Each time, the idea is the same. Only the size of the unit changes.

The Ofsted research review of mathematics, published on gov.uk, gives an example of why unit facts matter. It says pupils are unlikely to be able to solve an area word problem that needs them to multiply two lengths with different units if they do not recognise the strategy. It also lists "unit measurement facts, conversion formula" among the things pupils need to know. A child who knows without effort that 1 m is 100 cm has one less thing to worry about when a harder problem arrives.

This sheet gives eight short conversions. They move from easy (2 m in cm) to trickier ones that mix metres and centimetres (4 m 5 cm in cm, 720 cm in m and cm).

What the research says children find hard

We looked for research that says exactly where children go wrong with metres and centimetres. We did not find a study on that precise skill that we could open and check, so we have not made up any figures. What we can say comes from two sources we did read.

• Measuring length is harder than it looks. A review for the Nuffield Foundation by Peter Bryant of the University of Oxford says that measuring length and area poses particular problems for children, even though they can understand the underlying logic of measurement. Their difficulties concern the iteration of standard units, which is a new idea for them.
• What iteration means. The same review explains that iteration is about repeated measurements, so a ruler is a set of repeated units such as centimetres. Iteration is needed when the length being measured is longer than the measuring tool. That is exactly the situation with a length of several metres and a 30 cm ruler.
• You can see the units on the ruler, but not on the thing. The review notes that the units on a ruler are visible and clear, but they have to be imagined on the line being measured. This helps explain why a metre stick or a strip of paper marked in 100 cm can help.
• Weak foundations lead to errors. The Ofsted mathematics review says that mistakes of this sort are due to weak foundational knowledge that is more likely to generate errors and misconceptions. In practice, a child who is unsure of the times tables or of multiplying by 100 will find conversions slow and error-prone.

The Nuffield review was written about children's learning in general. It does not say that any particular worksheet or game fixes these problems, and neither do we. It does give a clear steer: give children real objects to repeat a unit along, not only numbers on a page.

What Year 3 children are expected to learn

The national curriculum for England, in its Year 3 programme of study for measurement, says pupils should be taught to:

• "measure, compare, add and subtract: lengths (m/cm/mm); mass (kg/g); volume/capacity (l/ml)"
• "measure the perimeter of simple 2-D shapes"

The non-statutory notes say that pupils "continue to measure using the appropriate tools and units, progressing to using a wider range of measures, including comparing and using mixed units (for example, 1 kg and 200g) and simple equivalents of mixed units (for example, 5m = 500cm)." They also say that comparing measures includes simple scaling by integers, for example a quantity that is twice as long or 5 times as high, and that this connects to multiplication.

The curriculum's own example, 5 m = 500 cm, is almost exactly what question 2 on this sheet asks. Year 4 then takes the idea further. Pupils there are taught to "convert between different units of measure" such as kilometre to metre. Getting comfortable with metres and centimetres in Year 3 is the first step on that road.

Why a short practice sheet can help

We want to be straight about this. We did not find a study of a metres and centimetres worksheet, or of a game for converting units, that we could open and quote. So we are not going to tell you a number. What we can offer is practical reasoning, based on what the sources above say.

The Nuffield review says children find iteration of units hard. A short sheet that asks the same kind of question eight times, with small changes each time, gives a child several goes at the same idea. The questions are ordered so that the first ones are one-step and the later ones need two steps. That lets a child notice the pattern: multiply by 100 to go from metres to centimetres, divide by 100 to go back.

The Ofsted mathematics review says that weak foundations make errors more likely. A sheet like this is a quick way to find out whether the foundation is there. If a child hesitates at 5 m, you know where to practise. If they sail through, you can try the stretch idea on the adult page.

The sheet is practice. It is not a lesson, and it does not replace one.

How to get the most out of Metres and Centimetres

1. Start with something real. Lay a metre stick, or a strip of paper marked 0 to 100, on the floor. Ask your child to count along it in tens. Then ask: how many centimetres is this whole stick?
2. Do the first question together. Read "2 m in cm" out loud and say the reason: "One metre is 100 centimetres, so two metres is 200."
3. Talk about the mixed ones. For 3 m 40 cm, ask your child to split it: "3 m is 300 cm. Add the 40 cm."
4. Go backwards. For 250 cm, ask how many whole metres fit in it, then what is left over. The answer is 2 m and 50 cm.
5. Check page 2 together. Let your child mark their own work. Ask them to explain any answer that was wrong.
6. Measure something at home. Measure a door, a bed or the hallway. Write each length twice, once in metres and centimetres and once in centimetres only.
7. Come back another day. Ten minutes a few days later is more useful than one long session.

Common mistakes, and what to say

• Writing 450 cm for 4 m 5 cm. The tricky part of 4 m 5 cm is the 5. It is 5 cm, not 50 cm. Say: "4 m is 400 cm. Then add the 5 cm. What is 400 and 5?" Writing 400 + 5 on paper shows why the answer is 405, not 450.
• Multiplying when you should divide. A child may turn 600 cm into 60,000 m. Ask: "Is a metre bigger or smaller than a centimetre?" A bigger unit means fewer of them. 600 cm must be a small number of metres.
• Adding 100 instead of multiplying by 100. 2 m is not 102 cm. Go back to the metre stick: two sticks end to end make 200 cm.
• Dropping the unit. An answer of "6" could mean 6 m or 6 cm. Ask your child to write the unit every time. The Nuffield review reminds us that units are easy to see on a ruler but have to be imagined on the thing being measured, so naming the unit makes the imagining visible.
• Zero confusion. 3 m 05 cm is not 350 cm. Place value matters here, and the curriculum notes say decimal recording of money is introduced formally in Year 4, so keep to whole numbers for now.

Why teachers matter to us

We are a games company, and we have been making games for families since 1795. We do not think a printable replaces a teacher. A 2011 report for the Sutton Trust, written by researchers at the London School of Economics, found that in one year with a very effective maths teacher, pupils gain 40% more in their learning than they would with a poorly performing maths teacher. That is a finding about maths teaching, and it is why a sheet like this should sit alongside a good lesson, not instead of one.

The same report found that for poor pupils the difference between a good teacher and a bad teacher is a whole year's learning. It also found that gender, race, teaching experience, undergraduate university, advanced degrees, teacher certification and tenure together explain less than 8% of teacher quality. A study of more than 7,000 English pupils by the University of Bristol also found considerable variability in teacher effectiveness. We think this is a reason to value teachers, and we are grateful to the people who do it well.

A caution on the Sutton Trust figures: the report draws on US studies as well as English ones. The 40% compares a very effective teacher (at the 84th percentile) with a poorly performing one (at the 16th percentile). The figure that paper credentials explain less than 8% of teacher quality comes from US research. We use them as pointers, not as a promise about any one child.

Why education matters to us

Measuring is a skill children use for the rest of their lives, in the kitchen, the garden and the workshop. We want every child to feel at ease with numbers, and we want that to start with something they can hold. Jaques of London has been making things for children to hold and play with for generations. The Mini Minds Hub is our way of carrying that on: free, screen-free, and simple enough for a parent at a kitchen table to use alongside a teacher in a classroom.

Metres and Centimetres: 20 questions and answers

1. How many centimetres are in a metre?

There are 100 centimetres in 1 metre. Everything on this sheet comes from that one fact.

2. How do I change metres into centimetres?

Multiply by 100. So 5 m is 500 cm.

3. How do I change centimetres into metres?

Divide by 100. So 600 cm is 6 m. If there is a remainder, it stays as centimetres, so 250 cm is 2 m and 50 cm.

4. Why is it 100 and not 10 or 1,000?

The word "centi" means one hundredth. A centimetre is one hundredth of a metre, so 100 of them make a metre.

5. What about millimetres?

The national curriculum for Year 3 lists lengths in m, cm and mm. This sheet sticks to metres and centimetres. Millimetres are a good next step, with 10 mm in each centimetre.

6. What does the curriculum say about this skill?

Its Year 3 notes give the example 5m = 500cm as a simple equivalent of mixed units. Year 4 pupils go on to convert between units such as kilometres and metres.

7. Why do children find measuring length hard?

A Nuffield Foundation review says children can understand the logic of measuring but find the repeating of standard units a new idea. A ruler is a set of repeated units, and the units have to be imagined along the thing being measured.

8. Why does a metre stick help?

It lets a child see 100 centimetres in one piece. They can count along it, and they can lay it end to end to see 200 or 300.

9. I have no metre stick. What can I use?

A strip of paper or card marked from 0 to 100 works well. You can also tape together ten 10 cm lengths. A tape measure from a sewing box is fine too.

10. What does "3 m 40 cm in cm" ask?

It asks for the whole length in centimetres only. Change 3 m to 300 cm and add 40. The answer is 340 cm.

11. What does "250 cm in m and cm" ask?

It asks you to split a length into whole metres and leftover centimetres. 200 cm is 2 m, with 50 cm left. The answer is 2 m 50 cm.

12. Why is 4 m 5 cm tricky?

Because the 5 is 5 cm, not 50 cm. The answer is 405 cm. A child who writes 450 has treated the 5 as 50.

13. Should I teach "add two zeros"?

Be careful. It works for whole numbers like 5 to 500, but children can misuse it. It is better for a child to say why. Each metre is 100 cm, so five metres is five lots of 100.

14. Does the Ofsted maths review say anything about this?

It lists unit measurement facts and conversion formulas among the things pupils need to solve certain area problems. It also says that weak foundations make errors and misconceptions more likely.

15. How can I make the sheet harder?

Ask how many centimetres are in 12 m, or in 12 m 7 cm. Or ask your child to write their own questions for you to answer.

16. How can I make it easier?

Use whole metres only at first, then add the mixed lengths. Count along the metre stick in tens and mark each hundred.

17. What can we measure at home?

A door, a bed, a sofa, the length of a hallway, a garden path. Ask your child to estimate first, then measure, then write the answer in both forms.

18. Is estimating a good idea?

Yes. Guessing that a door is about 2 m tall, then checking, helps children build a feel for how big a metre is. We have not found a study to quote on this, but it is standard classroom practice.

19. Is this a replacement for a maths lesson?

No. It is a short practice sheet. A Sutton Trust report found that in one year with a very effective maths teacher, pupils gain 40% more learning than with a poorly performing one. Teachers are what make the difference.

20. Where can I find more Year 3 measures sheets?

See the More like this section below, or browse all Year 3 maths printables in the Mini Minds Hub.

Sources

1. Bryant, P., Key understandings in mathematics learning, Paper 5: Understanding space and its representation in mathematics, Nuffield Foundation, University of Oxford: nuffieldfoundation.org.
2. Ofsted, Research review series: mathematics (2021): gov.uk.
3. Department for Education, National curriculum in England: mathematics programmes of study: gov.uk.
4. Sutton Trust, Improving the impact of teachers on pupil achievement in the UK, interim findings (2011): dera.ioe.ac.uk.
5. Slater, Davies and Burgess, University of Bristol CMPO Working Paper 09/212 (2009): bristol.ac.uk.

Frequently asked questions

What age is Metres and Centimetres for?

It is written for Year 3 (ages 7 to 8), in Key Stage 2.

What will children practise?

Converting between metres and centimetres using 1 m = 100 cm.

How do I use it?

Pencil only. One child working alone, about 10 minutes.

What if it feels too hard?

Lay a metre stick or a 100 cm strip of paper next to the sheet and count along it.

Is it free?

Yes. It is free to print for home and classroom use.

Is Metres and Centimetres suitable for teachers to use in class?

Yes. Teachers can use it as a starter, plenary, early finisher task, homework or table activity. It needs no preparation beyond printing.

Is this a screen-free activity?

Yes. It is a screen-free printable that needs only paper and a pencil, so it works well for quiet time, rainy days and school holidays.

Can I use it for home education?

Yes. Home educators and tutors can use it on its own or as part of a wider plan. It is free to print again for brothers, sisters or revision.

How long does it take?

Most children finish page 1 in 10 to 20 minutes. The notes on page 2 suggest ways to make it shorter or longer.

Do I need to print in colour?

No. It prints well in black and white on plain A4 paper.

More free printables

More for Key Stage 2 | More maths printables | Free printable games | All Mini Minds Hub resources