Picture maps

In your book, Maths Mela (Chapter 14, Maps and Locations), children are at a bird-watching camp. The map of the camp has a direction arrow showing north, south, east and west. Here is the camp in words: a road runs from north to south. One tent stands on the west side of the road. East of the road there is a lake. One tent stands right at the edge of the lake, closer to it than any other tent. Another tent stands a little to the north of that one, and one more tent stands to the south of the lake.

The book gives clues for colouring the tents. The tent to the west of the road is blue. The tent closest to the lake is green. The tent north of the green tent is purple. The tent south of the lake is yellow. Then you draw a new tent to the east of the lake. Each clue uses a direction arrow on the map to find the right tent.

Directions can be turned round. If the purple tent is north of the green tent, then the green tent is south of the purple tent. If a tent is east of the lake, the lake is west of that tent.

We can also say where things in a room are. Think of a room seen from above, with north at the top. A girl stands in the middle. The window is on the north wall, the cupboard on the west wall, the bed on the east wall and the door on the south wall. From the girl, the window is north, the cupboard west, the bed east and the door south.