Island Folk, Cardinal Directions

Overview:

Help the animals find their homes using cardinal directions. This activity supports students in using directional language to navigate and describe locations on a map. Designed for students in year 3 and year 4.

Learning Objectives:

• Use cardinal directions (north, south, east, west) to describe the location of different places.
• Apply directional language to help animals find their homes.
• Improve spatial awareness and map-reading skills by identifying locations based on given directions.

How the Activity Works:

In this activity, students will use the cardinal directions to help animals find their homes on a map. The instructions give the direction and relative position of each animal's home. For example, "Carolina lives west of the forest," "Gerard lives north of the school," and "Fran lives south of the dolphin watching and west of the waterfall."

Students will read each directional clue and then draw the corresponding animal in the empty bubbles above the houses that match the description. This will require students to consider the relationships between the places, such as how far apart they might be or their relative position on the map, and then place each animal accordingly.

This activity allows students to practise using cardinal directions to follow clues, building their understanding of spatial relationships and strengthening their ability to navigate and describe locations.