Prepositions for Kids

What Are Prepositions? (for Kids)

Prepositions are linking words. We use them to tell us where things are or when things are.

Examples of Prepositions telling us where things are:

• The mouse is under the chair.
• My apple is on the plate.
• He is behind bars.

Examples of Prepositions telling us when things are:

• Meet me in the morning.
• Clean your room before dinner.
• The train will leave at 4 o'clock.

Some prepositions can be used to tell us where AND when things are.

• Anna was in Germany in October.
("In" is a preposition. The first "in" tell us where. The second "in" tells us when.)

Examples of Prepositions

Prepositions are extremely common because we need them to show how words relate to each other. For example:

• John is near the cow.
(Here, the preposition "near" tells us the relationship between "the cow" and "John.")
• I saw your key by the lamp.
(Here, the preposition "by" tells us the relationship between "the lamp" and "your key.")

Here are 30 common prepositions:

• about, above, after, against, as, at, before, behind, below, beside, between, by, down, during, except, for, from, in, inside, into, of, off, on, over, through, to, under, until, up, with

Here is a list of 130 prepositions.

More about Prepositions

Here is the most important point about prepositions:

• A preposition shows the relationship between the word it is positioned before and another nearby word.

As you learn more about prepositions, you will soon notice that not all prepositions tell us where or when things are. Prepositions can tell us other things too, like ownership and how. For example:

• We found the fingerprints of the robber.
(Here, the preposition "of" tells us about possession. It is positioned before "the robber" to show the relationship to "the fingerprints.")
• Tina sang with passion.
(In this example, the preposition "with" tells us how. It is positioned before "passion" to show the relationship to "sang.")

Video Lesson

Here is a video lesson on prepositions:

Printable and Sendable Test