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Objective: Students will be able to identify prepositions and prepositional phrases as well as begin to write their own newspaper article.

To begin the lesson, I took a small animal (named Preppy), and had students gently toss him around the room. I then asked students where Preppy had landed. They inevitably said, "On the desk, in the aisle, behind the table," etc. Each time they responded, I wrote the prepositional phrase on the board. This works great because anywhere Preppy lands is a preposition.

After naming many prepositions and prepositional phrases, I grouped the students into pairs and gave each group a newspaper and highlighter. Each group selected one of two previously chosen articles, and the students highlighted 20 prepositional phrases from that article.

Next, we went over what type of questions prepositional phrases answer (who, what, when, where, why, and sometimes how). Explain that newspaper journalists often use prepositions in order to write detailed articles.

The next day, the students broke into groups of 5 and began writing their own newspaper articles. Each student wrote a different article, and combined them with the group to make a newsletter. The title is called "The Fantasy Press...where dreams come true."quot; Each student created an article suc" as "Local Teacher Wins Lottery...Retires from Teaching" or "Little Brother Abducted by Aliens" or "Tampa Bay Devil Rays Win World Series." They then use the News-Journal as a model and create their own fantasy stories and paper.

The students were motivated from the beginning of the lesson with the throwing around of a stuffed animal. Their attention was still captivated by using the newspaper. With tools like those, the kids forgot they are actually learning. They were then motivated even further by being able to create their own fantasies and stories.

In order to determine if the lesson was effective, I graded each article turned in. Each article needed to have a minimum of 10 prepositional phrases and cover who, what, when, where, why, and how.

Michael Noyes
Deltona Middle School
6th Grade Teacher

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