MathsFreePrintable

Balance and Weight Exploration

A free maths worksheet ready for your classroom. Open in Kuraplan to grab the print-ready PDF, customize it for your students, or generate a fresh version in seconds.

Download now

Name:Date:

Balance and Weight Exploration

Levi, Talia and Nathan are preparing parcels for a Matariki celebration. They use a balance scale to check weights. A balanced scale has equal total mass on both sides. Use grams (g) and kilograms (kg), and show your calculations where asked.

What does the scale tell us?

Use the balance scale idea: the lower pan is on the heavier side; level pans have equal mass.

1.Levi puts a 650 g parcel on the left pan and a 480 g parcel on the right. Which pan will drop, and by how many grams?

2.Talia has a 1 kg bag of flour and a 375 g bag of dried fruit. How many more grams of flour are there than dried fruit?

3.Nathan places a 250 g packet and a 325 g packet on one pan. What mass must go on the other pan to make the scale balance?

Plan the parcels

Parcel labels show mass. Remember that 1,000 g = 1 kg.

4.A parcel contains 420 g of tea, 265 g of nuts and 315 g of dried fruit. What is its total mass? Give your answer in grams and kilograms.

5.A scale has 1.2 kg on the left and 850 g on the right. Choose the correct result.

The right side is heavier by 350 g.
The left side is heavier by 350 g.
The left side is heavier by 1,050 g.
The scale is balanced.

6.The team wants every parcel to weigh exactly 1 kg. One parcel weighs 735 g. How much mass must they add?

7.True or false: If one side of a balance has three objects and the other has one, the side with three objects must be heavier. Explain your choice.

Investigate and explain

Use the data below for the challenge questions.

8.Using the item masses, determine whether any two pairs of parcels have equal total mass. Show the possible pair totals to justify your answer.

9.Find the difference between the heaviest and lightest parcels in the data. Then state which parcel is heaviest and which is lightest.

10.Design a balance challenge for the Matariki stall: choose any two listed parcels for one side, then calculate the mass needed on the other side to balance them. State your calculation.