Prepositional phrases follow the pattern of a preposition followed by a noun, pronoun, gerund or clause. Most often, the noun is preceded by an adjective. For example, “under the table” is a prepositional phrase made up of the preposition “under” and the noun “the table.” Including a modifier gives detail but does not change the group of words from being a prepositional phrase; for example, “under the red table” includes the adjective “red.” Practice writing prepositional phrases together as a class; ask one student for a noun and another student for a preposition to go along with it. Hand out a list of prepositional phrases and ask your students to identify the parts.
Just because you include a prepositional phrase in a sentence does not mean you must have a comma; sentences with prepositional phrases follow the same comma rules as sentences without them. The placement of the phrase will tell you if you must include a comma. For example, the sentence “Underneath the spaghetti, there was a huge meatball” needs a comma after the introductory phrase “underneath the spaghetti,” which is also a prepositional phrase. Give your students a list of sentences with prepositional phrases with commas and ask your students if the sentence is correct or incorrect. If the sentence is incorrect, ask your students to explain why and how to fix the sentence.
Ask your students to practice writing sentences to help them learn about grammar rules. Choose a preposition from a list and ask your students to write a sentence using that preposition as part of a prepositional phrase. Give your students a topic or subject to write their sentences about and instruct them to use commas where appropriate. Ask your students to write a poem using prepositional phrases with commas. For a creative activity for more advanced students, write a song to help your students memorize prepositions. Ask more advanced students to write a few paragraphs including sentences with prepositional phrases.
Read through a block of text and ask students to identify the prepositional phrases. Underline the phrases and circle the use of commas around the phrases. Look at example sentences with commas and ask students to identify if the commas are used correctly or incorrectly. For an art project, make a picture book that includes prepositional phrases. Put prepositional phrases into bingo squares and play a game of bingo. In order to win, the student must also write a sentence using one of the prepositional phrases with a comma.