I believe it is critical to inject excitement into lessons, tickling multiple regions in the brain, in direct proportion to the dullness and drabness of the factoids we must teach our students. The incredible challenge in teaching really boring material is that it is also boring to the teacher, and, believe me, children pick up on our emotions as we teach! If the subject matter bores us to tears, it will bore the children as well. Prepositions fall easily into this category of most boring content.
So let’s make it fun! Use body movement, color, images, and hands-on activities, and make it such a riot that the children will never ever forget.
By way of review: What does the word preposition mean?
If we break the word into parts, we have PRE and POSITION. A preposition is a word that is positioned before (pre) another word or phrase in a sentence and relates directly to that second word.
Some examples
The red word is the preposition; the italicized word is the word it refers to:
He ran downthe hill.
She put it onthe table.
He hid behindCharles.
We can play afterlunch.
The bird flew overthe trees.
We are inthe house.
Types of prepositions
Location: under, over, in, by, between, upon, near, beneath, beside, inside, outside, below, etc. The word that follows the preposition is the central object, such as in the sentence, “The runners sprinted across the river.”
Time: before, after, since, during, until, as, etc. These relate to a specific time such as in the sentence, “We will play before lunch.” Lunch is the central event, and playing will happen in relation to that event in time.
How to teach prepositions of time
You will need:
Children.
Art materials, including a long banner of paper to make a timeline on.
Large, long sheets of paper like banner paper; one per group of children.
Choose an event
I used lunch in my example sentence above, so let’s go with that for now. Lunch is the event. You will plan lunch to happen at noon.
Make a timeline with the children. It is better if they do the work, so you might prefer to divide them into groups to make the timelines. Beauty is not the key, but rather, just hours marked off before and after lunch. See an example here:
The numbers across the top represent hours in the day. With lunch being the central event, all other events take a back seat to the grand hotdog!
Add events around the main event
Next, have the children put their heads together to plan other events that happen in their day. Suggestions include:
Packing my lunch
Computer lab and various other classes
Announcements at lunch
Lining up for lunch
Talking with a friend
Packing up book bag
Riding home
Now, have the children divvy up the events and assign the ones they will use to members of their group. The kids will draw something to represent the event and label their drawings.
Choose a preposition to go with the additional events
Next, the children will need to select a preposition as they decide when additional events happened in relationship to lunch (ex: before, during, after). In the sample sentences below, the preposition is in all caps and the word the preposition refers to is bolded. (Make sure the children know that the bolded word is a noun):
IN the morning, I put an apple IN my lunch.
We have lunch AT noon.
BEFORE lunch, we have PE, reading, and computer lab.
DURING lunch, I get to see my best friends.
I have been feeling really stuffed SINCE lunch.
AFTER lunch we have music, math, and science.
AT lunch the principal made announcements at the microphone.
We always have lunch BETWEEN 11:00 and 1:00.
BY 11:50, we were lined up for lunch.
3 hours AFTER lunch, I packed up my book bag.
3 ½ hours AFTER lunch, I got on the bus to go home!
Write a sentence about each event and illustrate
Have the children write their sentence in pencil on their drawing of the event they were assigned to draw and then the group will collaborate on pasting the little pictures where they should go on the timeline. In this example, you can’t see any sentences, of course, but they would appear on each child’s drawing.
Share with the class
Once all timelines, illustrations, and sentences are completed, and the whole poster is completed, give each group time to share what they did with the class. The process of creating the timeline will make prepositions unforgettable. To follow up this learning activity, as you go through your day, reinforce prepositions of time by writing them on the board for the children to see.
“AFTER math, we will line up for PE.” “BEFORE art, we need to be sure our bags are packed.” Etc. You wouldn’t need to write the whole sentence on the board, rather, just write the preposition and its accompanying event. I would be consistent in how you identify each. You don’t have to use all caps and bold; you could instead use colors to code each word.
One of the most challenging things about the English language has got to be homophones! These are words that sound the same, but they are spelled differently, and they have different meanings. This can make reading and spelling a bit tricky and frustrating. Take the confusion with this fun and engaging activity!
We’ve got two options when it comes to teaching a child to recognize SH, CH, TH, and WH. We can either point to SH and say, “This says Shhhh,” OR we can engage the entire child-- mind, emotions, and body-- in an activity that will make learning digraphs unforgettable.
Go through all the SnapWords®, pointing out word chunks or sound spellings so that when they come to a more complicated word, you can show how the larger word has pieces that are similar to much smaller words they already know. The brain loves making connections!
