Part of my math curriculum was teaching my 5th graders about the metric system. Now, I am may be dating myself big time, but I don’t remember learning about the metric system until I took Chemistry my junior year of high school! I must confess, also, that I did not do well at all in mastering the system…I flunked the test. So, when presented with having to teach my elementary students, I was racking my brain for ways to help them master the concepts.

I decided my students needed a visual manipulative to make the metric system more hands on for them…They needed to master the metric prefixes AND have an understanding of each of the prefixes and how they related to each other.
So…VOILA!!! I had my students create this quick reference…

I had my students write down the meaning of each of the prefixes on the back of each of the prefix cards.  Finally, both my students AND I had a better understanding of the metric system.  Where were these kinds of things when I was taking Chemistry!?  LOL