How Many Cups in a Gallon? Teaching Activity
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Wondering how many cups are in a gallon, or how many tablespoons are in a cup? Maybe you wonder how many pints are in a quart or how many quarts are in a gallon? If you need an activity for teaching these concepts to kids, this is a fun one, for sure!
If you struggle with the U.S. customary measurements, this activity will be a big help! They are not as simple and straight forward as the Metric system, so it takes a bit of memorization to remember them and their equivalents. Lots of people struggle with them. You are not alone!
Every time we are baking in our home and my kids need to half or double a recipe, I get these kinds of questions. When I taught foods classes (Home economics at a high school), this was one of the test requirements that my kids had to know. It was so hard for them to remember, too! But luckily, it has been ingrained in my head ever since teaching it!
How Many Cups in a Gallon?
Watch It:
Today I want to give you a fun idea for teaching kids to find out how many cups are in a gallon, how many tablespoons are in a cup, or how many tablespoons are in a cup. (Check out my Gallon Man post for another fun way to teach this concept.)
I love this neat set of measurement learning tools!
Supplies:
You will need an empty milk jug, a quart container, a pint container, a 1 cup measuring cup, a tablespoon, and a funnel. Heavy cream cartons work well for the quart and pint containers.
Do this near a sink or get a big bowl of water to use to fill the measuring cup and spoon.
This activity is easy to set up and do in just a few minutes time. Just gather your supplies, then start measuring!
We started the activity by measuring how many tablespoons are in a cup (16). This one is tricky because if the tablespoon is not filled to the top, it will not be a correct measurement.
Once you have a cup filled, measure how many cups are in a pint (2). Use a funnel to pour the cups of water into the pint container.
When your pint is filled, you will use the funnel and pour the water into the quart. You know you started with 2 cups in the pint container. How many pints does it take to fill the quart? There are 2 pints and 4 cups in a quart.
And finally, measure how many quarts are in a gallon by pouring your quart container into the gallon. We refilled this one in the sink.
There are 4 quarts in a gallon. So, if you do the math, you know there are 16 US cups in a fluid gallon. You can use this time to talk through the math of each of the measurement conversions.
Can you figure out how many tablespoons are in a gallon as well? (16×16)
See my Gallon Man post, too!
