Memorising prepositions

[Flowergirl159]

Any tips on how to memorise the prepositions?

 

I am going back to Easy Grammar and seeing if there is some way we can make this program work for us.

 

I need ideas on memorising the prepositions though. Any ideas?

[marge]

http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/507808-question-about-memorizing-prepositions/

 

This thread has some ideas!

[BatmansWife]

That thread that Marge linked mentions a song by Classical Conversations.  You can go to youtube and type in Classical Conversations Preposition Song and find it. 

[fdrinca]

I still remember the preposition song, which I memorized in 7th grade. 

 

But if I have to ID a preposition today, I do so by the "the mouse ran ____________ the table" trick. 

[EndOfOrdinary]

We made a song out of it. My son is kinesthetic, so he made a dance for himself that went with the song. We took ten days and only memorized. All he had to do for grammar was run through the list four times at three different intervals in the day.

 

The position thing doesn't work with Easy Grammar's approach. The entire point is to get kids to identify prepositional phrases so they can isolate the object of the preposition and later determine whether the preposition is an adverb. If prepositions are approached as any position word then it becomes very confusing as to why they are sometimes an adverb. If they are approached as words that relate two objects, then a preposition becomes a bridge. When there is no object of the preposition, there cannot be a bridge, thus it is an adverb.

 

Easy Grammar was the program we used for years. It requires quite a leap of faith from the parent, IMHO, because it is not the way many of us learned grammar. It has really worked for our family and I understand far more than I ever learned in school.

[Laura Corin]

Just a thought - do you actually need to memorise a list?  I taught my boys what a preposition does, so that they could identify one.  I couldn't think of a reason for learning them all by rote.

 

L

[Momling]

I agree - why memorize? Just give your kids a sentence like this: I went _______ the river. Then have them make a list of every word that fits into the blank.... (To, into, over, through, under, around, etc...) Voila! Prepositions!

 

I think learning about grammar is cool, but the important part is knowing how the word class functions, not knowing a list of the words.

[thegirlwhopaintedtrees]

JAG has a sample online in which thye share a really easy way to identify a preposition.  We stopped singing and memorizing the CC preposition song after I found the JAG sample.  Much simpler.  

 

The Mouse goes ____ the box.  Then the exceptions are But Al Does (But, Until, Then, As, Like, During, Of, Except, Since)

 

Link to sample of JAG: http://66.129.109.103/media/upload/image/Jr%20AG%20sample%20unit.pdf

 

[blondeviolin]

My oldest memorized hers nearly effortlessly by listening to the FLL audio companion.

[KellieK]

I found this song on YouTube. It took a few days and they had them memorized

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1KB95CWp7u8

I agree that memorizing a list of prepositions can make things more confusing, rather than understanding them by function.  For example, the word "to" is a preposition.  Except when it isn't.

[lifesadream83]

We made up our own tune to the FLL list... She memorized it really quick

 

[Walking-Iris]

I used Easy Grammer 3 with my oldest at that age. We didn't try to memorize the prepositions, we just simply looked for that prepositional phrase, did the activities on the daily grammar worksheet and called it good. If he didn't know the answer I just simply told him and taught it and eventually he learned it.  I found with practice and more practice he could pin point the preposition in a sentence. Since he did that first every time before finding nouns, verbs etc. he really got good at it.

 

Schoolhouse Rock is a classic song for learning this. 

 

Honestly EG is so open and go that I don't think it takes much to make it work. Do you have the teacher guide? There are good tips in there for teaching it at times. And honestly grammar repeats itself over and over again, that I wouldn't worry about getting it down the first time. I also taught the worksheets in the student workbook as a lesson. I didn't just have him do them, we did it together. 

 

Playing preposition Bingo or memory helps. But honestly directional games are a big help at first. I wouldn't hold a child back for not memorizing them. I'd simply keep moving forward, with reviews as necessary.