First Grade English: Prepositions of Place & Movement (in, on, under, through)

Have you ever wondered how words explain where something is hiding or where an animal is running? If you only said: "The mouse is the box," nobody would know if the mouse was trapped inside the box, sitting on top of the lid, or sleeping underneath it! In the English language, we have a family of spatial location words called prepositions. A preposition shows the relationship of location, position, or movement between a noun and the other words in a sentence. In this chapter, you will master the most common prepositions of place and movement.

What Is a Preposition?

A preposition connects a noun or pronoun to the rest of the sentence, showing position in space, time, or direction.

+-------------------------------------------------------------+
|                 THE PREPOSITION PLAYGROUND                  |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
|                                                             |
|                     [ ON the box ]                          |
|                          ___                                |
|                         |   |                               |
|   [ BESIDE the box ]    |   |   [ IN the box ]              |
|          *              |_*_|         *                     |
|                                                             |
|                    [ UNDER the box ]                        |
|                                                             |
|   Prepositions tell exactly WHERE things are located!       |
|                                                             |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+

The Squirrel and the Tree Trick

A fun trick to remember prepositions of place and movement is the "Squirrel and the Tree" trick. Almost anything a friendly squirrel can do to an old oak tree is a preposition! A squirrel can run up the tree. It can sit in the tree. It can sleep under the tree. It can scamper around the tree. It can jump off the tree.

Prepositions of Place: IN, ON, UNDER, and OVER

Prepositions of place describe where an object is resting or located.

+-------------------------------------------------------------+
|                 PREPOSITIONS OF PLACE GUIDE                 |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
|  Preposition | Physical Meaning      | Example Sentence     |
|  ------------+-----------------------+----------------------|
|  in          | Inside an enclosed    | The toys are IN the  |
|              | container or room     | wooden toy chest.    |
|  on          | Resting on top of a   | The book is ON the   |
|              | surface               | clean table.         |
|  under       | Below or beneath an   | The cat slept UNDER  |
|              | object                | the warm bed.        |
|  over        | Above without         | The bridge goes OVER |
|              | touching (or across)  | the winding river.   |
|  behind      | At the back of        | Hide BEHIND the door.|
|  between     | In the middle of two  | Stand BETWEEN friends|
+-------------------------------------------------------------+

The Power of Prepositional Phrases

A preposition rarely travels alone; it usually leads a team of words called a prepositional phrase! In the phrase "under the kitchen table," "under" is the preposition, and "the kitchen table" is the noun object it points to. Prepositional phrases add rich scenery to your stories.

Prepositions of Movement: THROUGH, ACROSS, INTO, and AROUND

While prepositions of place describe resting positions, prepositions of movement describe dynamic motion from one point to another.

+-------------------------------------------------------------+
|                 PREPOSITIONS OF MOVEMENT                    |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
|                                                             |
|   THROUGH ===> Moving in one side and out the other side:   |
|                "The train zipped THROUGH the tunnel."       |
|                                                             |
|   ACROSS  ===> Moving from one side to the other over a top:|
|                "The duck swam ACROSS the wide pond."        |
|                                                             |
|   INTO    ===> Moving from the outside to the inside:       |
|                "The frog leapt INTO the cool water."        |
|                                                             |
|   AROUND  ===> Moving in a circular path encircling something:
|                "We ran AROUND the big oak tree."            |
|                                                             |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+

Movement Gives Life to Action

Notice how prepositions of movement work hand-in-hand with action verbs: "crawled through the tall grass," "marched across the bridge," "dove into the waves." They map out the character's exact path of adventure.

Practice Exercises

Exercise 1: Read the following story sentence and identify all the prepositions: The little chipmunk scurried under the wooden fence, darted through the flowerbed, and climbed up the tall stone wall.

Exercise 2: Choose the best preposition (in, on, under, or through) to fill in each blank: Put your warm mittens _ your jacket pockets. The bright lamp rests _ the nightstand. The brave explorer crawled __ the dark cave tunnel.

Exercise Solutions

Solution to Exercise 1: The prepositions in the sentence are: "under" (under the wooden fence), "through" (through the flowerbed), and "up" (up the tall stone wall).

Solution to Exercise 2: For the mittens: "in" (Put your warm mittens in your jacket pockets). For the lamp: "on" (The bright lamp rests on the nightstand). For the explorer: "through" (The brave explorer crawled through the dark cave tunnel).