Prepositions of place for kindergarten

Prepositions are the words that go along with or introduce nouns, pronouns, and noun phrases, and describe the time, place, location, direction, or relationship with another item. Prepositions of place are especially important in kindergarten as kids learn to interact with the expanding world around them.

Keep reading for some great resources that will help your Kindergarteners understand prepositions of place!

Teaching reading and writing to young learners

Early literacy can be an intimidating subject! If you’re new to it, don’t worry! Learn the basics in our post, Supporting early literacy at home.

Prepositions of place for Kindergarten

While prepositions are formally taught in Kindergarten, many children have been using them since they were toddlers. For example: “We build snowmen in the winter,” “I eat at the table,” “The weeds grow between the flowers.” Much of the language we use to describe the world around us requires us to use prepositions.

Even though we use these kinds of words often, learning them can be a bit tricky. I’ve compiled some resources for young learners that are great for teaching prepositions in a fun and engaging way. This list intentionally provides a diverse range of resources, so I hope that your little one enjoys something from here regardless of their learning style!

Learning media for kids

Many little ones love listening to songs and stories and watching videos. If that’s the case for your little one, they will probably enjoy one of these!

• Video
  • Teacher Joan has a cute animated video, “The Frightened Little Rabbit” over on Youtube. Skip to 2:15 if you’d like to jump right to the story!
• Books
  • If you Were a Preposition by Nancy Loewen
  • Under, Over, By the Clover: What is a Preposition? by Brian P. Cleary
  • Around the House the Fox Chased the Mouse by Rick Walton
• Read-Aloud Stories
  • No time to get to the library and not interested in buying? You can find many books on Youtube, like “Under, Over, By the Clover: What is a Preposition?“ by Brian P. Cleary and read by Time2Read2Us.
• Songs
  • Jack Hartmann has lots of catchy songs, and his Preposition Song is no exception!
  • “The Prepositions Song” by Scratch Garden is another catchy tune with three parts.

Preposition of place educational games

The best part about educational games is that children are having so much fun playing, they often don’t realize that they’re learning too! Play-based learning is also great for engaging little ones that may struggle with (or not enjoy) written worksheets. This approach also makes learning prepositions a natural process because the terms are embedded in the game instructions.

Group games

• The Teacher Next Door’s “Anywhere A Mouse Might Go” poster is simply adorable. Her game is super fun and easy, too.
  • Basically, have all of the children stand in their starting position. The leader calls out a category, like “All kids wearing blue/that have a pet/that walk to school…” Next, the leader gives that group a prepositional direction, like “…hop to the carpet/stand beside the curtain.”
  • Only the children in the group called are allowed to move! Once the turn is done, the leader makes up new groups and gives them directions for them to follow.
• “Draw My Directions” is a fun game from FluentU’s page
  • Have each child ready with a paper and drawing utensil. Then, the leader will give out simple prepositional instructions that the children follow.
  • For example, if drawing a cat, ask them to “draw a large circle in the middle of the page.” Then, “draw two medium sized triangles at the top of your circle.” Keep going until you’ve completed the drawing, then have the group compare their drawings to yours and see who got it right!
  • Check out their page for lots of other group games that teach prepositions!

Individual games

• This super simple printable from LMS Design Art is a great introductory game to prepositions, and only costs $3.97. In fact, their shop has lots of great (and affordable) resources for learning including time, vowels, and parts of speech! If you’re artsy, you can probably create your own version by hand, too.
• FlagHouse has a neat “Fox in the Box Positional Words Activity Set” that teaches both prepositions and rhyming. Because it comes with props and a game board, it is a little more pricey at $48.50 CDN, but will surely keep your littles engaged for a long period of time.
• Scavenger Hunts are fun for both individuals and groups! Simply hide items around the house and provide the children with instructions like “the egg is behind the bookshelf” or “the rock is under the table.”

Worksheets & workbooks: Prepositions of place for kids

Some little ones love worksheets, others feel quite the opposite. Here are some awesome resources for the Kindergarteners that learn best through reading and writing.

• Education.com’s “Working Words Workbook”
  • Not only do they have a great workbook, but it’s free! They also offer tons of other great resources for young learners and categorize them by grade, subject, or learning standards.
  • If you’re looking for just one worksheet, and not a whole book, their “preposition examples” is a good place to start.
• Edu Buzz Kids has another set of adorable printable worksheets, which you can check out here.

Hands-on practice with prepositions

Teaching prepositions can be super simple. All you need is two objects, like a toy car and a cup! Simply give your child a direction and ask them to copy it with their objects. You could ask them to “put the car on the cup,” “park the car under the cup,” and whatever else you can imagine! You can also switch roles once they’re getting the hang of it and let them give you directions.

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More preposition learning for kids

There we go! Now you’ve got lots of great resources for teaching your little one how to use prepositions in fun and engaging ways. You may notice, though, that my list focuses on prepositions of place and excludes prepositions of time. This is because we introduce prepositions of place first before moving on to the more difficult and abstract topic of time. So, start here first then move on to learning about preposition of time words once your children have a solid understanding of time including time of day, days of the week, and months of the year!

Resources

Looking for more literacy-related posts? Check out some of these!

• Letter tracing ideas: Ways to make writing fun!
• Alphabet letter tracing worksheets from A-Z
• Early literacy tips for parents
• How to teach sight words
• When to teach sight words
• Sight word sentences for emergent readers
• The best books for a 1-Year-Old: Types and titles
• What is a board book?