Prepositions

Prepositions are words that express a relationship between things or beings in a sentence, very often relating to ‘where’ or ‘when’.  They are usually a single word, but sometimes consist of more than one word.

Some common prepositions are contained in the table below.

on	in	at	into
onto	over	under	before
after	between	beyond	because of
until	by	since	like
through	along	of	with
near	from	on top of	past
round	beside	for	towards
off	across	above	below
up	down	inside	about

Prepositions can be used with a noun or noun phrase to create a prepositional phrase:

• beyond England
• across the sea
• by teatime
• until 10 o’clock
• along the riverbank
• like a cheetah
• with a friend

These prepositional phrases can be used:

• to extend noun phrases, providing information after the main noun in the phrase (The small girl with the pigtails played the recorder.)

or

• to fill the adverbial slots in sentences, giving information about where, when, how or why things happen.  (The rabbit disappeared down the burrow.  At that moment the man slipped on the banana skin.  She shivered because of the cold.  The fish darted like silver arrows.)

Sometimes we use prepositions with verbs to extend or alter the verb’s usual meaning.  For example, the verb ‘take’ means something different to the verb ‘take off’.

Although children use prepositions and prepositional phrases from an early age to describe where, when, how or why things happen, they will not usually be taught the term ‘preposition’ until Year 3.  Children will be encouraged to create and use prepositional phrases in their writing to provide their readers with more detailed information.

You can use the following activity to help your child use prepositions to create prepositional phrases describing ‘where’ the action happens.

Make preposition cards from the table below.  Using this picture (or one of your choice) ask your child where a small character, like a mouse, could hide or run.  Turn the cards over and see if you can use each one to create a prepositional phrase.  You can provide part of the sentence at first, but encourage your child to experiment with different ideas, changing the character and actions. 

• The tiny mouse hid …  (inside the wall, behind the plants, up the chimney, etc.)
• The mouse ran … (over the wall, across the roof, through the drainpipe, etc.)
• The ant crawled …

on	in	onto	into
up	over	under	before
after	between	beyond	down
along	by	inside	through
off	near	of	across
above	beside	on top of	past
round	below	from	towards

You can discuss prepositional phrases that you notice when reading and also create them when you are out an about.  For example, past the shops, over the bridge, towards the church.  Try to remember your journey so that you can write these phrases down on strips of paper when you get home.  Children can then experiment with creating a prepositional poem, putting the strips of paper in the correct order.  

Here's my example of a sequential journey to give you the idea!

My journey to work

Down the lane,

Across the bridge,

Along the road,

Into the village.

Through the lights,

Past the church,

At the roundabout,

Out of the village.

Up the hill,

Under branches of trees,

Over the top

on Woodbury Common.

Between farm shop and fields

Beyond pubs, parks and houses,

Exeter!

It could be fun creating a poem of a shopping trip in the supermarket: above the sugar, below the carrots, behind the beans.  

Or alternatively, use a picture of a pirate map and ask children to describe their journey to the treasure!  Search 'pirate maps for kids' online for some great examples.

Nouns and noun phrases in Year 2

2014 National curriculum requirements for Year 2 children relating to nouns	Terminology used in Year 2
Expanded noun phrases for description and specification [for example, the blue butterfly, plain flour, the man in the moon]	noun, noun phrase, adjective,
Formation of nouns using suffixes such as –ness, –er and by compounding [for example, whiteboard, superman]	compound (noun), suffix
Formation of adjectives using suffixes such as –ful, –less	adjective, suffix
Use of the suffixes –er, –est in adjectives	adjective, suffix
Consolidation of previous learning	Continuing to use terminology from Year 1.

In Year 2, there is much more emphasis on children using the correct terms to understand and develop noun phrases in their writing.  At the end of Year 2, the grammar and punctuation test will use the terminology in questions designed to check children’s understanding of these grammatical features.

However, continuing to develop noun phrases and sentences orally is an important part of the writing process.  Children need to make choices about what words and phrases they will use, so experimenting out loud will help them investigate a number of possibilities and decide what sounds best and communicates their intended message to the reader.  Playing oral games with your children to create noun phrases will help them to try out different ideas for describing people, objects and places.

Adding words to the noun phrase is called ‘expanding the noun phrase’. In Year 2, children should investigate using more than one adjective and again, as in Year 1, should be encouraged to vary the words they start their noun phrases with (these words are called determiners, but this terminology is not required until Year 4).  

Following on from ideas for Year 1 children, pictures can again be used to build description. 

With a picture you can:

• Collect adjectives to describe the noun and play around with combining them.  For example, small, slim, green, white, brown, lazy, patterned, sunbathing. If children write these phrases and they have more than one adjective, they will probably need to use a comma to separate these: that green, brown and white lizard, a small, slim lizard.
• Use two words placed together to act as an adjective.  When we want two words to work together as an adjective, we need to put a hyphen between them, e.g. long-tailed, beady-eyed.
• Play around with alliteration in the noun phrase, e.g. the lazy lizard, the long-tailed lizard.  (Alliteration is the use of two or more words beginning with the same sound, which usually means they also begin with the same letter.)  This can also be carried on in the rest of the sentence: The lazy, long-tailed lizard lay in the sun.

When children have been taught the suffix work in Year 2, you can add these adjectives to your games, e.g. a beautiful lizard, this helpless lizard.  Take any opportunity to talk about other words that are similar to these (e.g. beauty, help, helpful) and how the spelling is different.

With the suffixes –er and –est, you can create sentences in threes and see how imaginative you and your child can be.  For example:

• The small lizard hid inside a watering can.
• The smaller lizard curled up inside a flower pot.
• The smallest lizard slipped inside an empty snail shell.

Sometimes we can’t add –er and –est without changing part of the adjective.  This happens when the adjective ends in –y.  In these cases, we need to change the –y to an –i and then add the suffix: happy, happier, happiest.

We don’t always add –er and –est to adjectives.  With some adjectives we need to use more or most, e.g. more beautiful, most expensive.  Children should learn that we don’t use more and –er together (more slimmer) or most and –est together (most friendliest).

Compound nouns are formed when two existing words join to create a new noun, e.g. super + man = superman, white + board = whiteboard.  You can copy the table below to enlarge, print and cut out cards which can be used in games to create compound words.  You can change the words in the table for new compound words that you find.

Turn all the cards face down and play a type of Kim’s game by remembering where the matching cards are.  Each player turns over two cards.  If they make a compound word, both cards can be kept by that player.  If not, hide the words by turning them down again, but try to remember where particular cards are so you can match them next time.  The winner is the player with the most compound words when all the cards are gone.

super	market	post	man
fire	work	police	woman
hand	bag	grand	father
green	fly	black	bird
play	ground	motor	way
news	paper	flap	jack
pop	corn	leap	frog
lamp	shade	horse	shoe
home	work	rain	bow