How to draw a compass rose

Have you ever noticed those pretty circleish-star shapes with the directions on them in the corner of a flat map? They are called compass roses. They can be very elaborate or simple, but they help orient the reader of the map to which direction places exist in relationship to each other. The concept of direction can be described to kids as the relationship of one object to another. On a flat map or a globe, you can show them north, south, east, and west. The symbol on a map that reminds us of these cardinal directions is called a compass rose.

The first decorated compass rose, according to Wikipedia, was found on a map in 1375 by cartographer Abraham Cresques. 

Help your child draw a beautiful decorated compass rose by reading a story first to introduce them to the idea. 

The Boy Who Loved Maps, by Kari Allen and G. Brian Karas, is a story about an imaginative boy and his friend who worked together to create the perfect map. I love this line from the book: “He made maps of the faraway places he dreamed of going to and of the places he read about in books.”

The boy loves to draw maps and calls himself "the mapmaker." He works to create the perfect map and makes a friend in the process.

I really like the frequent drawings of the compass rose in this book. 

Drawing a compass rose is attainable for anyone who can draw a line. Add color and you’ve got a beautiful work of art! I recommend drawing first with pencil so kids can erase some of the lines. Then, they can go over and add embellishment with colored pencils, crayons, or marker.  Kids may choose to use a circle tracer and a ruler, or they might just freehand it as it seems the illustrator did in the story.

Here are the instructions:

That's it! I hope your kids had a lot of fun creating their own compass roses--and maybe even their own maps to go with it. There is no limit to the ways they can add their own artistic spin on these age-old tools for guiding sojourners on their way.