Reading a Map: Legend, Compass Rose, and Symbols
A 45-minute social studies lesson that teaches the three tools every map gives you — the legend, the compass rose, and its symbols — then has students use all three to answer questions about a map they have not seen before.
Social Studies
Subject
Grades 2-4
Grade Level
45 minutes
Duration
Map Skills
Topic
On this page: Materials · Warm-Up · Direct Instruction · Guided Practice · Independent Practice · Assessment · Closure · Related Resources
Learning Objectives
By the end of this lesson, students will be able to:
- Explain what a map legend is for and use it to identify what a symbol stands for
- Name the four cardinal directions and locate them on a compass rose
- Use direction words to describe where one place is in relation to another
- Answer questions about an unfamiliar map using its legend and compass rose
Materials
- Map Skills Worksheet — one copy per student
- Map Legend Worksheet, for the guided practice section
- A classroom or wall map, or any map displayed large enough for the class to see
- A second, unfamiliar map for the independent practice — a local park, zoo, or town map works well
Vocabulary
- Map — a drawing of a place seen from above
- Legend — the box that explains what each symbol on the map stands for; also called a key
- Symbol — a small picture or shape that stands for a real thing, such as a tree or a road
- Compass rose — the marker showing which way is north, south, east, and west
- Cardinal directions — the four main directions: north, south, east, and west
Preparation
Have a large map displayed before class starts. Any map with a legend and a compass rose works; a map of somewhere students know is best, because the lesson is easier to grasp when the place is real to them.
Choose a second, unfamiliar map for independent practice — a park, zoo, campground, or shopping-center map. That transfer step is what shows whether the skill stuck, and it only works on a map nobody has walked through with you.
If your room has a globe, keep it nearby for the closure question.
Warm-Up
5 minutes. Ask students to imagine explaining to a new student how to get from the classroom to the cafeteria, using only words. Take two or three attempts.
Directions like “go that way” and “past the thing” will come up, and students will notice for themselves that pointing does not survive being written down. Ask what would make it clearer. Someone will suggest drawing it — which is a map, and that is the opening.
Direct Instruction
12 minutes. Gather students around the displayed map and take a tour of its three tools, asking rather than telling wherever you can:
- Symbols. Point at one and ask what it stands for. Establish that a map cannot show real trees or real buildings, so it uses small pictures instead.
- The legend. Ask how anyone is supposed to know what the symbols mean, then show them the box that answers it. Look up two or three symbols together, moving from the map to the legend and back so the habit is the round trip, not a single glance.
- The compass rose. Name the four cardinal directions and their order around the rose. Give students the reminder that north is not “up” in the world, only up on most maps — the rose is what tells you, not the edge of the paper.
Then model the move the lesson is really about: ask a question the map can answer, and think aloud through it. “Is the school north or south of the river?” Find both places, check the compass rose, answer. Say each step out loud, because the step students skip is checking the rose, and they skip it silently.
Guided Practice
13 minutes. Students work through the Map Legend Worksheet with a partner, then answer questions about the displayed map together as a class.
- What does this symbol mean? Point to where in the legend you found it.
- How many of this symbol appear on the map?
- Which direction would you travel to get from one place to the other?
- Name something that is north of the school. Now name something south of it.
Require students to point at the legend or the compass rose as they answer, not just say the answer. A student who guesses correctly from the picture alone has not used the map’s tools, and will stall the moment the symbols are unfamiliar.
Independent Practice
10 minutes. Students complete the Map Skills Worksheet on their own, then turn to the unfamiliar map and answer three questions about it: name two things the legend shows, say what is in the northern part of the map, and describe how to travel between two places using direction words.
The unfamiliar map is the assessment that matters. Reading a map you were walked through is remembering; reading one you have never seen, using the same three tools, is the skill.
Assessment
5 minutes. Exit ticket, using the unfamiliar map: what does one symbol you chose stand for, and how do you know? Then, is one named place north or south of another?
“How do you know” is the part to grade. An answer naming the legend shows the student used the map; an answer that only names the object may just be a good guess from the picture, and those two students need different things next.
Closure
3 minutes. Return to the warm-up. Ask how a map would have made the cafeteria directions easier, and what the map would need on it to be usable by someone who has never been to the school. Students should name all three tools without prompting.
Differentiation and Accommodations
- Extra support: start with a map of the classroom itself, drawn together, with symbols the class invents for the door, the desks, and the reading corner. Building the legend makes it obvious what a legend is for. Add a compass rose taped to the wall showing which classroom wall is north.
- Extension: have students draw a map of the playground or their route home, with a legend of at least four symbols and a compass rose. Then trade and ask a classmate to answer questions using only the map — a legend that is missing an entry gets discovered instantly.
- Common difficulty: students read “up” as north on every map without checking. Show a map with a rotated compass rose once; one counterexample fixes it faster than a rule.
- Also common: confusing east and west. The order of the four directions clockwise around the rose is worth practicing until it is automatic, before any question depends on it.
Extension Activities
The natural follow-ups are maps and globes, which addresses what a flat map cannot show, and continents and oceans, which applies the same reading skills to a world map.
For a cross-curricular link, keep a map out during read-aloud and locate where the story takes place. Map skills fade quickly when they are taught once and never used again, and cost nothing to keep in circulation.
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