Introducing: My Conversion Robot

As I was teaching my 4th grader his math this past week, I was reminded of a little robot that I drew up when I was teaching a 4th - 6th grade combined class at the boarding school we once worked at.
To help Caleb remember equivalent volumes of liquid measure, I drew my robot for him as well.  I also showed him a little checker board chart that I made to help with measurements within one cup.

I often end up changing the quantity of original recipes when I am cooking recipes from scratch, putting together jars of spice mixes, and canning with pints and quarts. I refer to these little illustrations, which are now in my head, quite a bit.

Although I am slightly embarrassed by my lack of artistic skills, I thought I would share them with you too. 

You can click on him for a zoomed in view, and if you really like him, feel free to print him out and stick him in your cupboard or recipe box. 

Here's how my robot works if you were wondering. (I would be if I were you!)

• The robots body equates one gallon.
• The robots belt divides the robots body into half gallons.
• A robot needs arms and legs, of course. There are 4 quarts in one gallon. (I'm sure you can figure out the half gallon.)
• In order for the robot to do its work, it needs some way to pick things up.  It has 2 pivoting triangles on each appendage that make grapples. Each quart has two pints.
• This robot is quite a klutz in the kitchen like I am, so it needs some suction cups on its grapples. Two suction cups per triangle will help quite a bit. Each pint has 2 cups.
• And just in case 2 suction cups weren't enough, each of these suction cups is comprised of 8 mini suction cups.  Each cup has 8 oz. 

And on a smaller scale of measurement (and a smaller scale of creativity), is this checkerboard conversion chart that I drew up.

• The checkerboard as a whole equals 1 cup and is divided into 4ths, four 1/4 cups.
• Each 1/4 cup contains four squares marked with a T for 4 Tablespoons per 1/4 cup.
• Each T has 3 dots attached to it, showing there are 3 teaspoons per Tablespoon.

With all of the Christmas cooking and baking that will be going on in the next couple of weeks, I'm sure there will be many recipes being adjusted and changed.  I know in this house there has been, and that silly little robot and checkerboard gets visualized often!

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