What is a preposition?

A preposition is a word that tells you where or when something is in relation to something else.

Common prepositions:

What is a prepositional phrase?

A prepositional phrase is a group of words that includes the object that the preposition refers to, and any other words that link it to the preposition.

Prepositional phrase examples:

Prepositional phrases KS2

Prepositions are first mentioned in the National Curriculum in Year 3:

Writing – vocabulary, grammar and punctuation: use conjunctions, adverbs and prepositions to express time and cause

Knowing how to use prepositional phrases allows children to expand their sentences, adding more detail and description.

Prepositional phrase activities:

• Give children a sticky note and challenge them to write on it as many prepositional phrases as they can find in their current reading book.

• Ask children to write a sentence including a prepositional phrase, then swap it with a partner, who has to identify both the preposition and the prepositional phrase. Could they change it for a different prepositional phrase that would still make sense?

• Give children a sentence starter, e.g. 'The dog chased the cat...' and ask them to think of how many different prepositional phrases they could add that would complete the sentence. This could be done as a whole class activity - can they each think of a different one?

• Give children prepositional phrases as sentence starters, and challenge them to complete the sentence, e.g. 'Beyond the trees...'. You could make this a physical/oral activity by giving children the prepositional phrases on strips of paper, and asking them to travel around the room. When they meet another child, they each have to say aloud a suggestion as to how they would complete the other person's prepositional phrase sentence starter.