Display the road-sign image as pupils settle. Take three hands-up answers, not open call-outs. Do not settle the distance yet — the point is to surface that a kilometre is a big, journey-sized unit, much longer than the yard.

1 km to m: point at the ×1,000 tile, one kilometre is 1,000 m, same distance said two ways.

Before Example 2, pause and take a predicted answer for 2 km.

2 km to m: 2,000 m, same jump of a thousand; every whole km carries three zeros in metres.

2,000 m to km: tool climbs the ladder, 2 km. Going up we divide, going down we multiply.

Mixed 1,500 m: do NOT put this on the converter (it shows 1.5 km). Partition by hand on the board: draw 1,500 m, ring the first 1,000 m as one kilometre, label the remaining 500 m, so 1 km 500 m. Stress distance unchanged, only renamed. This is where pupils slip, so slow down.

3 km to m: 3,000 m. Close on sensible units, km for journeys, m for lengths in the yard.

This round is for talking it through together — pupils take turns at the board and the class agrees or corrects out loud.

Rotate four pupils, one per conversion, and keep the ladder in km → m the whole round so the single tool cycles cleanly. For each, take the whole-class thumbs signal (thumbs up multiply / thumbs sideways divide) before the board pupil moves the ladder — every km → m conversion here is a multiply, so listen for a confident thumbs-up. Revoice a strong answer: so seven kilometres is seven thousand metres — three zeros for every whole kilometre.

These are the practice questions — pupils take turns at the board, check each answer, and the class confirms before moving on. Keep the board work brisk rather than over-explaining.

Worked addition first (board, before the interactive): cycle 2 km + walk 500 m, altogether in metres. Estimate with hands-apart, then one spoken guess. Method end to end: rename to the same unit → 2 km = 2,000 m → 2,000 m + 500 m = 2,500 m. Slip to watch: adding 2 + 500 as bare numbers without renaming. Revoice: same unit first, then add.

For every interactive problem, ask roughly how far — before we work it out? Take the whole-class hands-apart signal, then one spoken estimate. If pupils have mini-whiteboards, they write their estimate silently before the board volunteer writes the full working. The comparison problems are the make-or-break: pupils must rename both distances into the same unit before deciding which is longer. Head off the slip of comparing 3 (km) against 2,500 (m) as bare numbers — 3 km is 3,000 m, so it wins.