Teaching Prepositions

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Teaching prepositions can be some of the easiest and hardest teaching experiences. Hard because for some reason the prepositions are not easily memorized. Easy because there is a plethora of fun activities that you can do to teach them. 

Let's start out with some great books that have a lot of prepositional words in them:

Vamos Froggy-My students LOVE Froggy books. In this one Froggy has misplaced several items and has to find them before heading out on a bike ride with his dad.  The main prepositions used are debajo, dentro, and en.

Se Venden Gorras-A great classic, Caps for Sale, that uses prepositions.

Where Is the Green Sheep? / Donde esta la oveja verde?-Lots of prepositions in this one. For younger elementary and preschool.

Lupe Lupita, ¿dónde estás?-Another book with lots of prepositions. It comes in "big book" form or as a board book.

So what are some activities you can do to teach the prepositions?

I normally introduce my students to them through the use of Blobby Robby and a plastic cup. I put him in relation to the cup and then tell them the preposition that is being displayed. For example, I put him close to the cup and say "cerca de" or I put him under the cup and say "debajo de". All my students know that when they see Blobby Robby we are going to review prepositions.

Another activity I do with house and body parts vocabulary is to get a blank outline of a house (see the above picture) and these Monsters Stickers . I then give the students instructions like "Tomen el monstruo con dos cabezas y ponganlo debajo de la cama." The students then have to take the correct monster and place him in the house correctly. Even the high school students I work with LOVE this activity!

Another item that I will be getting very soon for my younger students is the Positional Words Resource Box. This looks like so much fun! While the set is made to work with students that speak English there is no reason why it can't be used with another language. You as the teacher can give instructions on how to position the objects or you can do the extra work of creating cards in the target language like the set has.

Another activity that I do from time to time is to take some TOOB toys and give instructions to my students on where to place them in the room. Depending on which TOOB you use you can review the words for those items also. You can also hide the animals beforehand and then give instructions in Spanish for the students to find them.

So what cool ideas do you use for teaching prepositions? I would love to hear them!