Printable Prepositional Phrases Worksheets
Printable prepositional phrases worksheets for 3rd through 5th grade, with an answer key on every sheet. The sets below cover 4 different skills, so you can start where your child actually is. Available as format 1, format 2, and format 3.
About Prepositional Phrases
What this skill is
A prepositional phrase is a modifying group of words that begins with a preposition and ends with a noun or pronoun object (the object of the preposition), along with any modifiers (e.g., "[under the heavy wooden table]"). Solvers learn to bracket prepositional phrases, identify object nouns, prepositional modifiers, syntactic parsing, phrase structure, sentence expansion, and remove phrases to find core subjects and verbs during sentence editing and essay writing.
When children learn it
Identifying simple 2-word prepositional phrases (in class, on top) begins in 3rd grade. In 4th grade and 5th grade, students analyze introductory prepositional phrases, adjective/adverb phrase functions, and subject-verb agreement inside complex sentences across grammar curricula, writing revision, reading analysis, and sentence parsing drills.
Common Mistakes
- Mistaking the noun object inside a prepositional phrase for the main subject of the sentence (e.g., 'The box [of chocolates] is heavy').
- Stopping the phrase too early, leaving out modifying adjectives attached to the noun object ('in the big' instead of 'in the big red house').
- Confusing prepositional phrases with infinitive verb phrases (mistaking 'to school' [prepositional] for 'to run' [infinitive]).