Expedition: Preposition
As winter turns into spring, it’s the perfect time of year to awaken a young child’s senses. As the snow melts, they can guess what hides beneath. As flowers bloom, they can dig to see what else lies under the ground. As the birds return, they can take inventory of the types of birds that fly overhead. There are many opportunities to use nature and its seasonal changes as a learning tool.
This week, we will use a story about the natural world to explore prepositions. Parts of speech are generally taught to children well into the third grade, but the concepts that prepositions convey can be learned at any time. While children may not know the part of speech for the words they use, they can tell you in their own words where things are. They know the book is ON the shelf and that the shoe is UNDER the chair. They can recognize that they sit BETWEEN the friends that play on either side of them. Being able to identify and name the location of things is a foundational skill that supports every writer’s ability to produce creative work.
In A Stone Sat Still, the author Brenden Wenzel describes a small stone and the experiences it has with animals over time. The animals use it for various things, like shelter or comfort. The illustrations show how the animals interact with the stone. The animals fly above the stone, crowd in front of the stone, or hide under the stone over time.
In this week’s writing activity, children learn about and practice using prepositions to describe where things are in the world. They will select an object in nature and describe what they see around it.
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This month’s HoneyB3E’s activity sheet titled Expedition: Preposition helps children use prepositions to describe the world around them. Click below to download a copy for free.
Get your own copy of A Stone Sat Still by Brenden Wenzel at this affiliate link or from your local library.