FREE Metric Unit Converstion Posters

Do your students struggle to remember the order of metric units? This little mnemonic is something I learned when I was a student. To this day, I still write out KHDBDCM to help me convert metric units. (It was also just pointed out to me that another set of letters to use is KHDUDCM - a bit more "kid friendly"!) :)

Here's how it works:

• Teach your students the saying, "King Hector Died By Drinking Chocolate Milk" or "King Hector Doesn't Usually Drink Chocolate Milk"
• You should also teach them the basic shortcut of KHDBDCM or KHDUDCM so they can write it down directly on their paper.
• Now - let's practice.
• Say you need to concert from meters to centimeters - 5 m= ____ cm
• KDHBDCM
• You can see that the Base (meter) to C (centimeter) - or a larger unit to a smaller unit - moves the decimal to right.
• Therefore, 5 m = 500 cm
• If you convert from a smaller unit to a larger one, the decimal would move to the left.

If this is something you could see yourself using in the classroom, I created a basic poster as a visual reminder for students.


I created the posters in yellow, blue, green, red, purple, and pink. They are very basic - but work well as a reminder.


Please click on any of the pictures below to download your freebie directly from Google Docs! You will gets posters in both colors for King Hector Died Drinking Chocolate Milk and King Hector Doesn't Usually Drink Chocolate Milk.

I am so excited to share this with you! It's the second item I've finished today, and it's only the first day of Easter vacation. (Click here to see the first item at TpT. It's geared towards Grade PreK-1 and sells for $2.00) We'll see what else I can get done on Monday when I have some more time. =)


Can you see yourself using this poster? Have you heard this mnemonic before? I'd love to hear your thoughts!
~HoJo~