Compass Rose Worksheets

About this resource

Which way is north? Which way do you go from the school to the house? This is a complete kit for one skill: the compass rose. Children label a drawn compass rose (north, south, east and west first, then the four corners), turn and face, read four drawn maps with a compass rose on each, cut and paste, and draw a map of their own. It comes with answer keys, a tracker, a class grid and a family page, so nothing has to be written from scratch.

EVERYTHING INSIDE (26 pages)

• 11 student pages in 6 page types: Meet the Compass Rose, Label the Compass Rose (two pages), Turn and Face, Read the Map (four pages), Cut and Paste (two pages) and Draw Your Own Map
• 4 drawn maps (a town, a park, a farm and a village), each a grid of squares with simple pictures, a name under every place and a compass rose
• 24 map questions: 12 "which direction from one place to another", 6 "walk some squares and name the place", 6 "go straight in one direction and name the place"
• 68 scored items on 9 pages (20 label, 8 turn, 24 map, 16 paste)
• 16 cut-and-paste pieces on 2 mats
• 2 answer keys
• 1 tracker (page, page type, items right, date) and 1 whole-class progress grid
• 1 team note (a hand-off page between team meetings) and 1 home page
• 1 filled example (an invented student), 1 phrase bank (16 observable-language starters), 1 binder cover and 6 divider tabs with a spine label to cut out
• Start Here and a how-to-read-a-page page

The Page Types, Easiest First

1. Meet the Compass Rose (1 dot): a labeled rose with all eight directions, the words to know (compass rose, cardinal directions, intermediate directions), a memory trick and three lines to write.

2. Label the Compass Rose A (1 dot): a blank rose. Write N, E, S and W in the boxes, then what each letter stands for.

3. Label the Compass Rose B (2 dots): a blank rose with eight boxes, then four corner questions such as "Between N and E is ___".

4. Turn and Face (2 dots): eight items: the opposite of a direction, or a quarter turn to the right or to the left.

5. Read the Map A and B (2 and 3 dots): "From the fountain to the tree, which way?" Set A uses straight directions (north, south, east, west). Set B uses the corners.

6. Read the Map C (2 dots): "Start at the house. Go 4 squares west." Write the place you land on.

7. Read the Map D (3 dots): "Start at the school. Go straight northwest." Write the place you reach.

8. Cut and Paste, 2 pages (1 and 2 dots): Paste 1 puts eight direction pieces on a blank rose. Paste 2 sorts cardinal from intermediate directions. Each page has a block of 8 pieces that touch edge to edge, so cutting is a few straight lines.

9. Draw Your Own Map (3 dots): a grid to draw in, a box for your own compass rose and four sentence starters.

One Right Answer On Every Question

On the "which way" questions, the two places sit in the same column, the same row or on an exact diagonal, so only one direction is correct. The walk questions end on one square with one place. On the "go straight" questions only one place lies on that line. Every answer is worked out from the squares by the same code that draws the map, never typed by hand. The words in the boxes that are not answers appear on no map, and the position of the right answer is checked so it does not sit in the same spot three times in a row.

Built For The Child Holding The Page

A big "My name" line, one short instruction, large rounded type, big answer boxes, and dots (not words or colors) to show which level a page is. Nothing on a student page is written for an adult. The compass roses and map pictures are drawn for this file, and the maps read clearly in black and white.

Type In, Or Print

The name line and every answer box are type-in fields in any PDF reader: click one, type, then save. The same goes for the tracker, the class grid, the team note and the home page. This is a fillable PDF; it is not a Google Slides or PowerPoint file.

Who This Is For

Elementary classrooms, self-contained and resource rooms, and any teacher teaching map skills in social studies, a center, a small group or a morning work folder. The directions are short, and the teacher can read each page aloud.

What This Is, And What It Is Not

A compass rose worksheet set with the record-keeping around it. It has no distances, scales, latitude or longitude, and it is not a timed test, a screener, a clinical tool, or a claim about any student's age or rate of progress. There is no IEP goal language or eligibility wording anywhere in the file.