The book is on the bed.

Dear parent, now we will move onto learning about prepositions. It’s not important that you mention the word ‘preposition’ to your child or that they know how to say it in Arabic. Instead, we are more interested at this stage that your child learns and understands their usage and meanings. Prepositions come in front of nouns and pronouns and they help us understand the relationship between the noun and another word in the sentence. In short, they can be used when describing where somebody or something is. Look at the images below:

Tell your child to look at Pic A and ask them what they see? If your child simply replies, “A ball and a box”, be sure to congratulate them and explain that the ball is ‘in’/’inside’ the box. You can use other natural examples such as placing your hands inside your pockets and asking your child, “Where are my hands?”. You can also place your finger in your mouth and ask, “Where is my finger?” or perhaps place a teaspoon in a mug and ask, “Where is the teaspoon?”. In Arabic, the word for ‘in’ is في pronounced “fee”. Get them to pronounce it after you a few times ensuring that they have the correct pronunciation.

Now ask your child to look at Pic B and ask them what they see? Follow the same example above. If you would like to continue asking your child questions to check their understanding, place a pen on top of a table and ask, “Where is the pen?”. You can also place your hands on top of your head and ask, “Where are my hands?”. In Arabic, the word for ‘on’ is على pronounced “alaa”. Get them to pronounce it after you a few times ensuring that they have the correct pronunciation.

Let’s take a look at an example:

NOTE: Notice how each word in the examples above have ‘al’ at the beginning. This is very important to note when making sentences. Now, ask your child to work through the exercise below and select the correct preposition.

Get your child to make sentences by  looking at the image and then selecting the correct preposition.