Kōkiri Learn

Week 1 of 5

Where exactly is it? Grids and directions

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Session 1 · SOLVE: See the Pattern

The 'no pointing' challenge

  1. 10 minHook: in pairs, one person hides a small object in the classroom and describes where it is without pointing or naming the furniture. How many clues does it take? Which clues worked?
  2. 10 minShare the words that helped: how far, which way, a starting point. These are the three ideas every map uses.
  3. 20 minHuman grid: lay string lines on the court or field to make a grid with a centre point (0, 0). Students stand on points called out as ordered pairs, including negative numbers. What pattern do you notice in each quadrant?
  4. 10 minExit card: write the coordinates of three friends on the grid, and one point in each quadrant.

Session 2 · SOLVE: See the Pattern

Which way is north?

  1. 10 minRead 'Grids, coordinates and grid references'. Why does the x-coordinate always come first?
  2. 15 minShadow stick: push a stick into the ground and mark the tip of its shadow every 10 minutes around midday. In Aotearoa the midday shadow points roughly south. Check with a compass.
  3. 15 minCompass rose walk: in the playground, face each of the eight points (N, NE, E, SE, S, SW, W, NW) and name a landmark in each direction. How many degrees between each point?
  4. 10 minDraw a compass rose with the eight points and their degrees (N = 0°, NE = 45°…).

Getting started

Use a first-quadrant grid with only positive numbers and the four main compass points before adding negatives and halfway points.

Stretch

Add the sixteen-point compass (NNE, ENE…). How many degrees apart are the points now? What about 32 points?

Checkpoint

Everyone can plot and read a point in any quadrant and name the eight compass points with their angles.

Activities for this week

Useful this week