Dry Measure Review

The smallest unit is the . If you want to compare this to money, think of this as being similar to the cent.

The next biggest unit is the . 2 make up one quart.

Next is a . 8 make up one peck.

The biggest unit we will work with today is a . 4 make up one bushel.

1. How many pints are in 32 quarts? a. There are 2 pints in 1 quart. 32x2=64 pints 2. How many quarts are in 43 pecks? a. There are 8 quarts in a peck. 43x8=344 quarts 3. How many pecks are in 78 ? a. There are 4 pecks in one bushel. 78x4=312 pecks

Dry Measure Reduction

It is not always the case that we will be moving from just one level of the dry measure chart to the next. Sometimes, we will need to convert pints to pecks, and sometimes the unit will be given as a compound number, such as 3 quarts and 1 pint. Today’s lesson will prepare us to use math in order to reduce, or convert, units of dry measure in these cases.

Remember the conversion chart from yesterday. This will help us as we move through today’s examples.

Let’s start with some simpler examples.

How many pints are in 3 pecks? We can’t go from pecks to pints without including quarts as well. We know that in 3 pecks there are 8 quarts, and that in one quart there are 2 pints. In order to find out how many pints are in 3 pecks, we need to convert from pecks to quarts, then from quarts to pints. We will use multiplication, since we are converting from the higher denomination to the lower.

3pecks x 8 quarts per peck= 24 quarts.

24 quarts x 2 pints per quart = 48 pints.

There are 48 pints in 3 pecks.

How many bushels are in 256 quarts?

We can’t go from quarts straight to bushels. We know that there are 8 quarts in a peck, and there are 4 pecks in a bushel. In order to find out how many bushels are in 256 quarts, we need to convert from quarts to pecks, then from pecks to bushels. We will use division, since we are converting from the lower denomination to the higher.

There are 8 quarts in a peck. To convert quarts to pecks we will divide 256 by 8, which gives us 32.

Now we need to convert 32 pecks to bushels. We know that there are 4 pecks in a bushel, and to convert 32 pecks to bushels we will need to divide 32 by 4, which gives us 8.

Therefore, 256 quarts equals 32 pecks which equals 8 bushels.

Now that we are comfortable converting parts of dry measure, let’s now convert dry measure as compound numbers. For example:

Convert 5 bushels 2 pecks to pecks.

1 bushel equals 4 pecks. Thus, we will multiply 5x4=20 pecks in 5 bushels. Now, we must add 2 to account for the additional 2 pecks. So, 5 bushels 2 pecks equals 22 pecks.

How would we do this problem the other way around? Convert 22 pecks to bushels.

Again, we know that there are 4 pecks in 1 bushel. So, we will divide 22 by 4, which gives us 5 with a remainder of 2. The remaining 2 here are still pecks, since they didn’t fit evenly into a bushel. Thus, 22 pecks equals 5 bushels 2 pecks.

Convert 309 pints to pecks.

Again, we can’t go straight from pints to pecks. We will go from pints to quarts, then quarts to pecks.

We know that there are 2 pints in a quart. So, we will divide 309 by 2, which gives us 154 remainder 1. We can also write this as 154 quarts remainder 1 pint. We will save the 1 for our final answer, since this means that we have 1 remaining pint that doesn’t go evenly into the greater denominations. Now we will convert quarts to pecks. There are 8 quarts in a peck, which means that we will divide 154 by 8. This gives us 19 pecks remainder 2 quarts. Again, we will save the 2 quarts that didn’t fit evenly into pecks for our final answer.

We found that 309 pints doesn’t go evenly into pecks. Instead, 309 pints makes up 19 pecks, 2 quarts, and 1 pint. This would be our final answer.

Convert 3 bushels, 6 quarts, 1 pint to pints.

Here, we will be working from a higher denomination to a lower one. We will convert bushels to pecks, then to quarts, then to pints. We will add in any remainders as we move through.

3 bushels x 4 pecks per bushel = 12 pecks (There were no pecks in the problem, so we won’t add any here)

12 pecks x 8 quarts per peck = 98 quarts PLUS 6 QUARTS (This is very important, as there were 6 quarts in the problem). So, there are a total of 104 quarts.

104 quarts x 2 pints per quart = 208 pints PLUS 1 PINT (Again, there was one additional pint in the problem). So, 3 bushels, 6 quarts, 1 pint equals a total of 209 pints.

This lesson is based on p. 85-89 of Ray’s Practical Arithmetic.

Assignment:

1. Convert 7 quarts 1 pint to pints. 2. Convert 87 pints to pecks. 3. Convert 4 bushels 3 pecks 7 quarts to quarts.