Home Geography for Primary Grades · Lesson IV · Unit 1: Finding direction
4. How the compass shows direction
Goal: Your child knows that a compass needle points north, names the four chief points and the four in-between directions, and reads a real or homemade compass.
You'll need
- A compass if you have one (a phone compass app also works)
- Or, for a homemade one: a sewing needle, a fridge or bar magnet, a small slice of cork or a bottle cap, and a bowl of water
- Paper and pencil for a compass rose
- A geography notebook (any notebook kept just for these lessons) and a pencil
What's in the book
The lesson asks how to find direction when it is cloudy, describes a compass as a box with a needle swinging on a pin that points north, and names the chief points (north, south, east, west) and the in-between points (northeast, northwest, southeast, southwest). Three sentences to copy.
The lesson, step by step
A cloudy-day question
Ask: If it is cloudy and you cannot see the sun or the stars, how could you tell which way is north?
Read the lesson together.
It is a box in which is a little needle swinging on the top of a pin.
Look at a compass
If you have a compass, let your child hold it flat and still and watch the needle settle. Turn slowly in a circle: the needle keeps pointing the same way. Check it against your N sign from Lesson II.
Or make one
With an adult: stroke a sewing needle along a magnet about 30 times, always in the same direction. Lay it on a slice of cork or a bottle cap floating in a bowl of water. It slowly turns to point north and south.
Safety: the adult handles the needle; put it away afterward.
Eight directions
Draw a compass rose: a cross with N at the top, S at the bottom, E on the right, W on the left. Then add NE, SE, SW and NW halfway between.
SayNortheast is halfway between north and east.
Have your child point to each direction in the room.
Copy the sentences
Your child copies one or two of the book's sentences:
The chief points of the compass are north, south, east, and west.
Sailors find their way over the ocean by the help of the compass.
Quick quiz
Name a direction and have your child point: northeast, south, west, southeast. Then switch: you point and your child names the direction.
Afterwards
Keep the compass rose on the fridge. Each day ask which direction one window, door or room is from where you stand.
Tip
Keep the compass away from the fridge door, steel tables and phones while you read it, as metal and magnets pull the needle off.
Answers to the book's problems
A compass needle at rest points north, so even on a cloudy day or a dark night you can find north and then the other directions. The chief points are north, south, east and west; between them are northeast, southeast, southwest and northwest.
Worked out for this site from the scan. If a number in your copy differs, trust the book.