North, East, South, West: Label the Four Directions

Six compass roses fill this 2nd grade page in two columns, each a four-pointed star with a box at the end of every point. In each rose one box already shows a letter, N, E, S or W, the other three are empty, and one point of every star is colored orange. The child writes the missing three letters. On the sheet shown three roses stand the usual way up, with the orange point at the top, and give the child S, E or W. The other three are turned: the orange point lies to the left, to the bottom or to the right, and the given letter sits somewhere else on the rose.

Knowing north, east, south and west is not the same as knowing them in the usual picture with north at the top, and this page separates the two. The orange point always marks north, even on the turned roses, and the instruction says so, so read it aloud before children start. From north the child goes round the rose clockwise, north, east, south, west, and the given letter is the check: on the rose turned so north points left, W at the bottom confirms the order. That clockwise order is what the page really teaches, and Never Eat Soggy Waffles is the rhyme that fixes it.

One sheet, six roses, eighteen letters. Stand the class up and face each direction in the room before starting, then turn everyone a quarter turn to show that the order stays the same. Compass directions are a common grade 2 and 3 social studies unit without a Common Core standard of their own. The cardinal directions face uses the rose on a real map, which is the step after this one.