What your child will discover
Help the child understand that north, south, east, and west are cardinal directions used to describe orientation and movement consistently across places.
Lesson 217 of 300
What Are North, South, East, and West?
Learn the four cardinal directions and understand how maps, compasses, landmarks, and movement descriptions use them.
4–5 yearsEarth, Society & How Things WorkAdult guided
Earth, Society & How Things Work · KnowledgeForKids.com
Listen together · adult controls the audio
The spoken lesson
"North, south, east, and west are cardinal directions. North and south are opposites. East and west are opposites. Left and right change when your body turns, but cardinal directions describe the same geographic directions. A compass uses Earth's magnetic field to point approximately toward magnetic north. Geographic north points toward the North Pole, and the two are not exactly identical. A map may include a north arrow so people can orient it. The Sun usually appears in the eastern sky and sets toward the west, but the exact position changes. Cardinal directions describe where places are and which way we move." DESIGN REQUIREMENTS: Use a fictional indoor and map activity. Avoid live location, outdoor independent navigation, Sun-staring, advanced declination calculations, or teaching map-up as inherently north.
Words to notice together
NORTHSOUTHEASTWESTDIRECTIONCOMPASSMAPOPPOSITE
Make it real
Pause, point, name what you notice, and connect the idea to something familiar in your child's day. Repetition, a calm voice, shared attention and dependable care matter more than finishing quickly.