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Preposition Learning Activities

Prepositions are words that explain the relationships between other words in a sentence. For example, when you say, "The book is on the table," the word "on" is a preposition --- it does not refer to a specific object or action, but to the location of the book relative to the table. Because you cannot picture a preposition all by itself, many students struggle with recognizing them as such in their reading, even if they know how to properly use them instinctively. Activities on prepositions can teach students strategies to pull out this knowledge they already have.
  1. Different Pictures

    • Give students a "Spot the Difference" brain-teaser that features two similar pictures where one is has certain features slightly altered. Instruct your students to circle each of the differences and write a sentence using a preposition describing the different object's place in the picture. For example, if a leaf on a tree has been replaced by a doughnut, students could write, "The doughnut is hanging from the tree," in which "from" is the preposition.

    Story Preposition Fill-In

    • Find an age-appropriate funny story about a single page long and remove every other preposition. Distribute sheets with the altered stories to your students and have them fill in the blank sections using the context of the story. There may be some instances where there is no one right preposition, such as "Johnny threw that rubber ball ____ the hall." Have volunteers read their versions of the story and point out how using different prepositions may have given students different sentences.

    Outdoor Preposition Objects

    • On a nice day, take your class outdoors and spit them into groups of four or five. Give each group a large plastic bag full of 20 random, relatively durable items such as tennis balls or empty soda bottles. Assign each team to a landmark on the playground, such as a swing-set or a tether ball poll and instruct them to place as many objects around their landmark in different prepositional relationships as they can. Give all groups 10 minutes to set up, and then ask each team to describe their objects using prepositional phrases.

    Preposition Story

    • Give students a list of 30 different prepositions, with each list in a slightly different order than the others. Ask students to write a story, the subject matter of which you can determine based on their grade level, using each preposition in one sentence after another in the order given in their lists. Afterward, have students pair up and exchange stories with their partners. Then ask for volunteers to read theirs to the class. This activity will help students remember which words in their preexisting vocabulary are prepositions, and also teach them some they may not have already known.

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