The Best Free Online Prepositions Games
Prepositions, in all their forms, add considerable meaning to learners of English and allow them to add more depth and meaning to their sentences. We teach these in Kindergarten and Grade 1 in both native and ESL / Second langauge classrooms all over the world.
One of the most effective ways of teaching in groups is to use some of the excellent practice and consolidation online prepositions games that there are on the internet. The majority of these are free to play. They are available for both younger and older students.
They may not challenge Minecraft or whatever the ”cool” equivalent is now but introduce any online game into the Classroom and you will both be very popular and grab the students motivation and attention.
We have below a list of our top 8 online prepositions games that we use on a regular basis in our classrooms. These are all free and importantly not flash ( which has been discontinued.) Bookmark us if you often use online games in your classrooms as we add to these on a fairly regular basis.
If you are looking for Worksheets or activities for prepositions or anything English related we have hundreds for free and in the shop n the site. Just follow the links for details.
We also have articles and guides on the best games for other English and Phonics subjects as well. These include:
- Best FREE Online CVC Games
- Best FREE Online Digraph Games
- Best FREE Online Short Vowels Games
- Best FREE Online Long Vowels Games
- Best FREE Online Rhyming Games
- Best FREE Online Sentence Games
- Best FREE Online Syllable Games
Online Preposition Games
The following online prepositions games are reviewed and linked to below. To access them you can click the title, the picture or the button to take you to the game and the hosting site! Hope they are useful and happy teaching!
All of these have been tested by teachers and are working. None are Flash (or if they are are, they are still working!)
- Dinosaur Prepositions: ESL Games Plus
- Prepositions Game: GamestolearnEnglish.com
- Time Click Prepositions: MES Games
- Prepositions Maze: Turtle Diary
- Memory Prepositions: Games4ESL
- Basketball Prepositions: ESL Games Plus
- Sentence Preposition: British Council
- Kangaroo Prepositions: ESL Games Plus
Dinosaur Prepositions – ESL Games Plus
This is a lovely well animated online prepositions game which tests students listening, reading and comprehension skills. Students roll the dice to try to get to the end of the level while avoiding the hungry dinosaurs.
Once a dice roll has been completed they have to answer a prepositions question that will be answers with the prepositions for, in, to, from, by, at, on, since, and with. It makes a nice change as the vast majority of Prepositions games are based on prepositions of place.
Features
- Great animation and gameplay for students on their own or in classrooms
- The element of chance is included to make it more authentic
- Uses Dinosaurs in the classroom! An easy win for teachers
- Uses prepositions of time
Prepositions Game – GamestolearnEnglish.com
The features of this online prepositions game make it our favorite to use in classrooms. It instructions the students to move items into the correct place in the room with spoken and written instructions. As the items are generally house hold items it also encourages vocabulary comprehension as well.
This is a big in depth game, all focusing on prepositions of place. It goes into 9 rooms, or places including, living room, bathroom, classroom, kitchen, shops, bedrooms and more. So the Vocabulary is fairly detailed.
This is great for both beginning and intermediate students! If you make a mistake it also offers a visual clue.
Features:
- 9 different rooms to explore and games to play
- Teaches and practices vocabulary as well as prepositions of place.
- Free to play which for a game of this size is excellent
- Great for home computers and whiteboard / projectors in classrooms. Plenty of content included.
Time Click Prepositions – MES Games
MES Games have a good sized collection of games and activities on their English site. They follow a similar pattern and are quite basic. However they are all effective and in classroom environments it is often better to not have to much distraction in a game.
This game allows you or the students to choose a time limit to try to match all the spoken instructions for these prepositions of place questions. It is a useful matching exercise that with a few minutes at the end of a lesson allows you to consolidate students learning.
Features:
- Covers prepositions of place
- allows you to choose the time, which for big classes is useful
- Just uses spoken instructions so good for listening exercises
- Not flash, so still works!!
Prepositions Maze – Turtle Diary
We feel this game may be suited better to home play rather than classrooms, at least large classrooms. The game is a keyboard controlled game where students have to navigate their scorpion to the beetle that is a preposition. This takes some doing! They can not run into the other beetles or they lose a life.
It is actually quite tricky, and more time could be spent teaching how to control the scorpion rather than practicing preposition recognition. However it is one of the few that asks students to recognize the difference between a preposition and other words.
- Very well made game
- better for single / learning station rather than classroom. ( at least my classrooms!)
- Teaches the difference between prepositions and other word classes
- Is not flash (which some games on Turtle diary are – although they are going through and updating)
Memory Prepositions – Games4ESL
Something a little different here. This is a YouTube Game, which means it will need to be controlled by the teacher. Basically students have a set time to look and try to memorize a picture. Then the video asks a question and the students have to try to remember where that particular item was.
Its not the most interactive but when we tried it is was pretty successful and we even had students trying to write down where things are to help them with the questions. It is definitely worth trying as something different!
Features:
- A video game hosted on YouTube
- Good for encouraging writing as well as verbal answers
- Can play as a whole class and even make it the main part of a lesson.
- Only really good to use one time
Basketball Prepositions – ESL Games Plus
Another online prepositions game from ESL Games Plus. This site has some great games for classroom use. Unlike the dinosaur game above this is a set of questions that students have to get right to be able to take a shot at a basketball.
The preposition questions are present verbally, in written form and with a picture clue to help all manner of different learning styles. It would work great as a end of lesson consolidation activity and this is how we use it in our classrooms.
- Simple and effective
- Great for consolidation
- Other vocabulary and Grammar games on the site as well.
- Good to see three ways of presenting the question to cater for learner diversity.
Sentence Preposition – British Council
This is less of an online prepositions game and more of a online task really. However its is a sentence construction task that asks students to put the preposition in the correct place in a sentence ( along with all the other words).
Although the sentences are not that tricky it is still probably better for more advanced learners who are aware of some ideas around sentence construction. It covers prepositions of place, but not in the basic way that the other games do.
- A little older generation of online preposition game.
- Has longer words suitable for more advanced learners
- Not awesome graphics
- has a focus on spelling syllables which is a great skill to include.
Kangaroo Prepositions – ESL Games Plus
The final online prepositions game is from ESL Game Plus again. Although we prefer the other two this one still has merits when teaching prepositions. The game has a kangaroo trying to throw a boomerang at a bird. The reason why this is happening is not that obvious though!
This is more suitable for advanced learners as the sentences you have to complete are actually quite complex. However this is a plus point as there are much less games that address the needs of higher level students than lower level.
There are 10 sentences to complete to complete the game.
Features:
- Long complex Sentences suitable for more advanced English learners
- Simple game play
- Many more games on the site
Final Thoughts
Prepositions in all their forms are a very common site throughout the English language. So usually these are addressed from a younger age. We have included a couple of games more suited to older learners, though we usually find that they are also perfectly happy to jump in on the games for younger learners as well.
Of course there are many ways to teach prepositions, we have worksheets, games and more on the site which are linked to here and above. However a great way to introduce and consolidate prepositions for students is to use online preposition games in both classrooms and homes.
The more diverse and alternative approaches you can take with education, especially in todays technological world, the more chances you have for both maintaining students interest and for making sure the information sticks! Online games are certainly one way to help achieve that aim
Making English Fun!
I have been a teacher of English for over 15 years, in that time i made hundreds and thousands of resources and learnt so much i think its worth sharing. Hopefully to help teachers and parents around the world.
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