So my fifth grader son is a major sports fan… so much so that any given day you will find no less than 10 old or current recorded NFL, NBA, MLB, or collegiate sports games on our DVR. Because of his intense interest in athletics, I try to relate many things in education to sports as I can.

Last year I began thinking how to teach my son about liquid conversions (you know, going from cups to gallons and vice versa). I thought about using the standard Gallon Man drawing, but since he is back into playing baseball, I wanted to figure out a way to incorporate his sport du jour.

After thinking about it every free moment for a few weeks, I finally got it – and he loved it! I also shared it with his fourth grade classmates and they really enjoyed the image as well. I’ll explain:

The Image:

For the graphic, I used a standard image of a baseball field (with three bases and home plate) and named the drawing Gallon Field.

Making the Connection:

Using this image, I was able to teach my son how to convert liquid measurements in about 5 really easy steps:

1. Keeping in mind the entire field represents a gallon, each base and home plate became a letter Q, to represent quart.
2. I told him to think of the letter P for player, which would represent pint. I placed one P on each base as first, second, and third basement, and catcher.
3. I told him to imagine bases were loaded (placing a second “P” on each base), and a strong batter was up to bat at home plate, placing a second “P” on home plate
4. Then I told him each player has 2 hands, so I wrote the number 2 inside of each P, and these were to represent 2 cups.

The end result was an image with the 4 quarts, 8 pints, and 16 cups that are equivalent to a gallon. So simple for a young baseball fan to remember.

My son grasped this concept so quickly and easily, and wrote a book and workbook for it in the Brandon Jones Book Series. Check out the book and workbook pack at any time!

Do you know any young sports lovers ready to learn about liquid conversions? Click here to download a free Gallon Field Stadium image and worksheet, or download a full Liquid and Conversion packet from my TeachersPayTeachers store!