How were you taught to remember North East South and West?

Why would you need to remember an arbitrary order? I just remember being taught methods of figuring out which direction was which.

@Zolen It's not arbitrary - the specific order helps you remember which one's East and which one's West - if you remember North is up (on a compass rose it's normally marked anyways) then you can go around clockwise with the fun saying - and you can remember the directions! I guess it's about as complicated to just remember the directions instead, but the "Never Eat Shredded Wheat" thing works pretty good too.

I learned Never Eat Soggy Waffles, and I live in western US. I vaguely remember some teacher or someone in one of my classes mentioning Never Eat Soggy Worms or something (or maybe everyone was just making fun things up). But yeah. Waffles.

Zolen wrote:Why would you need to remember an arbitrary order? I just remember being taught methods of figuring out which direction was which.

Because some people remember things different than others? It’s like remembering PEMDAS for math. It just helps for some people. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Never Eat Shredded Wheat here in Ireland! Though some friends learnt Soggy Waffles.

Soggy Weetabix is my fave mnemonic, but was also my favourite breakfast for my whole childhood.

Knowing your location is important because otherwise you don't know where you are heading.

I learned by buying maps and seeing which way meant North, East West and South. I imagined myself standing in the center of the United States. If the sun was rising in a certain direction then that was East. If it was moving towards or setting in another direction, then that is west.

If I had the sun rising at my right side then I would be facing north towards Canada. If the sun was rising on my left side, then I would be facing south. If I kept walking west I would sooner or later reach the Pacific coast. If I kept walking East I would reach the Atlantic coast. If I kept going south along the Atlantic coast I would reach the Caribbean sea at the tip of Florida. South along the Pacific Coast would lead me to Mexico.

Weirdly I remembered them as North South East and West for ages because of ... this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCXqlAH7ekQ

@StellaThomas you monster how can you have liked soggy Weetabix.

I don't remember learning the order at school in any particular way, I think we just... learnt it. Anyway these mnemonics wouldn't have been in use as I didn't go to school in English. But I love different mnemonics and would often come up with some really weird ones too, but somehow that makes the things easier to remember.

Speaking of weird mnemonics, if I can't remember where the sun rises/sets (which still happens pretty often), I always remember it from the fairytale "East of the Sun, West of the Moon", because the sun rises in the east and the east is mentioned first in the title xD

Demeter wrote:@StellaThomas you monster how can you have liked soggy Weetabix.

And warm. Mmmmm.

I remember learning it on some sort of old kids' show (that I don't remember the name of) and there was some sort of interpretive dance where they pointed out the directions as they said them. After that, I would often point (up, right, down, left) and say North, East, South, West. Or something on that order.

To be honest, I don't think I've ever heard any of these mnemonics and suddenly I feel very out of place :p I feel like this is one of those homeschooled kid things.

I learned it as "Never Eat Sour Watermelons" but a lot of my friends, who grew up in a different school, learned "Never Eat Shredded Wheat" which is terrible advice honestly

I learned it as Never eat slimy worms

Never Eat Soggy Wheat, y'all!

Demeter wrote:@StellaThomas you monster how can you have liked soggy Weetabix.

I feel the need to dive in and add another voice to the defence of soggy Weetabix. Soggy Weetabix (with a little sugar on top) is an excellent breakfast.

The mnemonic I was taught as a kid (in the UK) was Never Eat Shredded Wheat - but it was realising that West and East spell "WE" when you look at a compass that actually helped me learn which one was which side.

I find it really interesting that pretty much all of these are dietary advice. And just how many are "Never Eat Soggy ___" - they're a lot more similar than I thought they'd be.

Iggy wrote:Because some people remember things different than others? It’s like remembering PEMDAS for math. It just helps for some people. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Okay, slightly off-topic but wooaahhh we learnt it as BODMAS and my brain is struggling with PEMDAS O_O