Preposition Worksheet for Class 1
Three free printable PDFs, with answers
A preposition in Class 1 is simply a position word: it tells you where something is. The nine your child meets this year are in, on, under, over, near, behind, in front of, between and beside. They are taught with pictures and real objects, never with a definition, because a five year old cannot hold a grammar rule in their head but can absolutely put a ball under a chair.
If your child writes in the table for on the table, that is the most common Class 1 preposition error in Indian homes, and it has a reason. English splits one idea into two words, in and on, and many Indian languages do not split it the same way. It is a translation habit, not carelessness, and it clears up quickly once you show it with a real object.
No sign-up. Answer keys are further down this page.
- Class 1 uses nine position words: in, on, under, over, near, behind, in front of, between and beside. Six of them carry almost every exercise in the textbook.
- Teach them with objects, not definitions. A ball and a box will do more in five minutes than a page of rules.
- "In the table" is a language habit, not carelessness. Many Indian languages use one word where English uses two, so your child translates and picks whichever comes first.
- Three sheets, one skill each week. Sheet 1 covers all nine words, sheet 2 goes back over in, on and under with fresh pictures, and sheet 3 asks your child to write their own sentence.
- Class 2 keeps this same list and adds above, below, inside, outside and next to. A Class 2 child who races through Worksheet 3 has a solid base for those.
What a position word is, in Class 1 words
Grammar books call these prepositions. In a Class 1 classroom they are called position words, and that name is the whole lesson: a position word tells you where something is. The pen is in the bag. The book is on the table. The cat is under the chair.
Your child is not asked to define a preposition, spot it in a long sentence, or name its type. They are asked to look at a picture and say where something is, in a correct English sentence. That is the entire Class 1 expectation.
| Position word | What it means to a six year old | Example sentence |
|---|---|---|
| in | inside something | The pen is in my bag. |
| on | touching the top of something | The book is on the table. |
| under | below something | The cat is under the chair. |
| over | above it, not touching it | The kite is over our house. |
| near | close to it | Our school is near my house. |
| behind | at the back of it | Ravi hid behind the door. |
| in front of | at the front of it | Meera stands in front of me. |
| between | in the middle of two things | Anu sits between Amit and Sara. |
| beside | right next to it | My bag is beside my bed. |
Schools almost always teach these in three waves. First in, on and under, because they are the easiest to show with a box and a ball. Then behind, near and between, which need two objects instead of one. Last come over, in front of and beside, which children often confuse with under, behind and near respectively.
The three worksheets on this page follow that same order. Worksheet 1 walks through all nine in the sequence the textbook introduces them. Worksheet 2 goes back over in, on and under with completely new pictures and sentences, because those three cause the most trouble in Indian homes and one session is rarely enough. Worksheet 3 takes the harder six, then asks your child to write their own sentence and to find the position words inside a short passage.
Worth knowing: if your child can point to the right place but writes the wrong word, the gap is spelling or reading, not position. Say the word, let them repeat it, then let them write it. Three seconds of speaking fixes what ten minutes of correcting will not.
Why "in the table" happens in Indian homes
Almost every Indian parent notices this one. The child understands the picture perfectly, points at exactly the right spot, and then writes The book is in the table. It is easy to read that as carelessness. It is not.
English splits one idea into two separate words. In means inside something. On means touching the top of it. Many Indian languages do not split it that way in everyday speech: one small word at the end of the phrase carries both jobs, and the speaker never has to choose between them. So when a five or six year old thinks in their home language first and then speaks in English, both English words look like the same word, and they pick whichever arrives first.
This is why correcting the word alone rarely sticks. The child hears "say on, not in", changes it that once, and makes the same swap next week. What does stick is showing the two positions with one object, so the difference stops being a word and becomes a place. It is also why there are two sheets on this page covering the same three words rather than one.
| What your child writes | What English needs | Show it in ten seconds |
|---|---|---|
| The book is in the table. | The book is on the table. | Put the book inside a drawer, then on top of the table. Same book, two places. |
| My cap is in my head. | My cap is on my head. | Cap on the head, then cap inside the bag. |
| My socks are in my feet. | My socks are on my feet. | Socks on the feet, socks in the cupboard. |
| The milk is on the cup. | The milk is in the cup. | Pour water into a glass, then spill a drop on a plate. |
| Ravi sits in the chair. | Ravi sits on the chair. | Sit on the chair, then sit inside a big carton. |
Two words worth teaching alongside, because they remove the guessing: inside and on top of. They are longer, and Class 1 children love them precisely because they are impossible to mix up. Once your child can say "the ball is inside the box" and "the ball is on top of the box" with confidence, in and on follow within days.
Never mark this one in red. A child who says "in the table" is doing something clever: translating between two languages in real time at the age of five. Say the right sentence back warmly, let them repeat it once, and move on. The habit changes through hearing and saying, not through correction.
Teach position words with objects, not definitions
Position words are the one grammar topic where a child can be physically inside the lesson. Use that. Everything below takes about five minutes and needs one ball and one box, or a tiffin box and a spoon, or whatever is on the table right now.
One object, one place, four moves
Hold a ball and a box. Put the ball in the box and say the whole sentence: "The ball is in the box." Then on it, then under it, then behind it. Four moves, four full sentences. Your child watches and repeats each sentence. Nothing is written yet.
Now they give the orders
Swap roles. Your child tells you where to put the ball and you obey exactly, including when they get it wrong. If Anu says "put the ball in the box" while pointing at the top of it, put it inside anyway. The mismatch between what they said and what they saw teaches the difference better than any correction from you.
Move to a picture
Open any picture book and ask three questions about one page. Where is the dog? Where is the ball? Who is behind the tree? A picture is the halfway step between a real object and a worksheet, and it is the step most parents skip. Do it for two days before you print anything.
Then the sheets, spread across the week
Now a worksheet is a check rather than a lesson. Print sheet 1 first. Leave sheet 2 for three or four days later, so the second session tests what stayed rather than what was just said. Save sheet 3 for the weekend, or for whenever the first two come back clean. Each one is short on purpose.
Use the house, not a book. Position words are free to practise while you are doing something else. Where are your chappals? Where is your water bottle? Where did you keep the tiffin box? Ask three of these a day, insist on a full sentence in the answer, and the worksheets become a formality.
One minute after every sheet. When it is marked, ask your child to read four of the finished sentences aloud to you. That tells you something the ticks cannot: whether they can read the words they have just written.
Answer keys for all three worksheets
Every answer for all three free sheets at the top of this page. Mark them sitting next to your child rather than alone, because the reason behind a wrong answer is worth more than the tick.
Worksheet 1
Exercise 1: Look at the picture, write in, on or under
Pictures run left to right. The answer is about the animal or the small thing in each one.
- Cat and box: on (the cat is on the box)
- Bed and dog: under (the dog is under the bed)
- Fish and pot: in (the fish is in the pot)
- Bird and tree: on (the bird is on the tree)
- Tree and car: under (the car is under the tree)
Exercise 2: Write the right word (behind, near, between, in front of)
- Ravi sits between Meera and Anu.
- The sun is behind a cloud.
- Our school is near my house.
- Dev is in front of the door.
Each word is used once, so a wrong answer always comes in a pair. If one is swapped, find its partner and fix both together.
Exercise 3: Circle the right word
- The book is on the desk.
- The pen is in my bag.
- The milk is in the cup.
- The bat is on the bed.
Exercise 4: Is it right? YES or NO
- NO. It should be: The cat is on the mat.
- YES. The fish is in the pot is correct.
- YES. The book is in the bag is correct.
- NO. It should be: My cap is on my head.
A child who marks every line YES has read the first word of each sentence and guessed the rest. Read all four aloud together and ask again.
Exercise 5: Write over or beside
- The kite is over my house.
- Sara sits beside me.
- The fan is over my bed.
- My shoes are beside the door.
Over means above it without touching. Beside means right next to it. If your child wrote "near" for beside, that is close enough in meaning to praise, then show that beside means touching distance while near can be across the room.
Exercise 6: Read and answer
- Where is the doll? In the box. Accept "in the red box" or "inside the box".
- Who is on the bed? The cat. Accept "Meera's cat" or "her cat".
An answer of "the box" instead of "in the box" is not wrong about position. It is a child answering "what" when the question asked "where". Ask the question again, stressing the word where.
Worksheet 2
Exercise 1: Look at the picture, write in, on or under
Pictures run left to right. Again, the answer is about the small thing in each one.
- Apple in a basket: in (the apple is in the basket)
- Butterfly and flower: on (the butterfly is on the flower)
- Chair and school bag: under (the bag is under the chair)
- Cap and boy: on (the cap is on his head)
- Umbrella and dog: under (the dog is under the umbrella)
Exercise 2: Circle in or on
- The clock is on the wall.
- The rice is in the pot.
- My socks are on my feet.
- The pencils are in the box.
Two in, two on, in no pattern. If your child got all four right on sheet 1 and only two right here, the first sheet was recognition rather than understanding. That is exactly what this second sheet is for.
Exercise 3: Write the right word (behind, near, between, in front of)
- The bus stop is near our gate.
- Nita hides behind the tree.
- The cat sits between the two pots.
- Our car is in front of the house.
The words "the two pots" are the clue for between. Point at them if your child is stuck: between always needs two things.
Exercise 4: Is it right? YES or NO
- YES. The mango is on the tree is correct.
- NO. It should be: My shoes are on my feet.
- NO. It should be: The mat is on the floor.
- YES. The water is in the jug is correct.
Exercise 5: Read and answer
- Where is the ball? Under the chair. Accept "under the chair" or "it is under the chair".
- Where is the bag? On the chair. Accept "on the chair".
Both answers must carry the position word. "The chair" on its own is not enough here, because the question is asking which of the two places.
Worksheet 3
Exercise 1: Write the right word (over, beside, between, in front of, behind, near)
- The fan is over my bed.
- Priya sits beside me.
- The shop is near our house.
- Rohan hides behind the door.
- The ball is between the two chairs.
- A big tree is in front of our gate.
Six words, six blanks, each used once. Beside and near are the pair children swap most often, so if those two are the only wrong ones, that is a good sheet.
Exercise 2: Circle the right word
- The kite is over our house.
- Anu sits beside me. (Between needs two things, and there is only one here.)
- The mat is under my feet.
- The bus is near our gate.
Exercise 3: Write your own sentence
There is no single right answer here, and that is the point of the exercise. A line is correct if it uses a real position word and that word makes sense for where the thing actually is. Both "My school bag is under my bed" and "My school bag is behind the door" earn a full tick.
- My school bag is under my bed, or in the cupboard, or behind the door.
- The fan is over my head, or on the wall.
- My water bottle is in my bag, or beside my books, or near my plate.
- I sit beside Asha, or between Asha and Kabir, or in front of the board.
Do not take marks off for spelling on this one. If "bihind" is on the line and your child can tell you where the bag is, the position word has been learnt and the spelling is a separate job for a separate day.
Exercise 4: Underline every position word
There are six to find, and they are underlined here in the order they appear:
- Our class is near a big neem tree.
- My desk is in front of the board.
- Asha sits beside me.
- Her bag is under the desk.
- The fan is over our heads.
- I sit between Asha and Kabir.
"In front of" is three words and counts as one answer, so accept all three words underlined together. A child who underlines only "front" has still found it. The one to watch is a child who underlines the naming words instead, such as desk or fan, because that means the question was read as "underline the important words".
Mark it in front of your child, not after bedtime. Ask "why did you choose that one?" before you say anything about right or wrong. Their reason tells you whether the position word is missing, the reading is missing, or they simply rushed. Three different problems, three different fixes.
What Class 2 adds, and what the sheets cannot check
Plenty of parents land on this page with a Class 2 child, and these sheets still fit. Class 2 does not replace the Class 1 position words, it extends them.
- The same nine stay. in, on, under, over, near, behind, in front of, between, beside. Class 2 simply expects them inside longer sentences and in written answers rather than spoken ones.
- New words arrive: above, below, inside, outside, next to, along and across. Most of these are a longer way of saying one your child already knows, which is why they are easy once the first nine are solid.
- Time words start: on Monday, in June, at four o'clock. Same little words, completely different job, and children who are shaky on the position meaning find this second meaning genuinely confusing.
So a Class 2 child racing through sheet 1 in six minutes is not wasting time. It is a check that the base holds before the new list lands on top of it. Start a Class 2 child on sheet 3 instead if you are short of time: it is the harder one, and a child who stalls on its write-your-own-sentence round has just told you exactly where to spend this week.
There is one thing no printable sheet can do, whichever class your child is in. It cannot hear them. A child can circle the correct word in The book is ( in / on ) the desk without being able to read the sentence aloud, because a circle needs only pattern recognition. Written work and reading aloud are separate skills, and one runs ahead of the other for years without anyone noticing, because homework gets checked and reading aloud usually does not.
ASER 2024: 44.8% of Class 5 children in government schools could read a Class 2 level text, and that test measures reading in the regional language, not English. These are children who have been filling worksheets correctly for years. The written work kept moving forward. The reading did not keep up with it.
The fix costs one minute. After a sheet is marked, point at any two finished sentences and ask your child to read them aloud to you. The vocabulary is already familiar, so anything that stumbles is a genuine reading gap rather than a hard word. Do it after every sheet for a fortnight and you will know exactly where your child stands.
For the reading skill underneath all of this, our guides on phonics for beginners and reading practice for kids cover how to build it from the sounds up. The National Reading Panel review in 2000 found systematic phonics teaching to be the most reliable route there, and that has not changed.
A worksheet can see the circle. It cannot hear the sentence.
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Frequently asked questions
A preposition is a position word. It tells you where something is: in the bag, on the table, under the chair. In Class 1 your child is not asked to define it, only to use it correctly while describing a picture or a real object. Most textbooks introduce in, on and under first, then add behind, near and between.
Nine position words cover the whole year: in, on, under, over, near, behind, in front of, between and beside. Schools usually teach in, on and under in the first term because they are the easiest to show with a box and a ball, then add the rest through picture work. NCERT's Marigold uses all of them inside its stories rather than in a list.
Because English splits one idea into two words and many Indian languages do not. In everyday home speech, the same small word often covers both inside and on top, so your child translates and picks whichever comes first. It is a language habit, not carelessness. Show the difference with a real object: put a book inside a bag, then on top of it.
Use one object and one place. Give your child a ball and a box, then say where to put it: in the box, on the box, under the box, behind the box. Ask them to say the sentence back each time. Five minutes a day for a week does more than a stack of printed sheets, because the child is moving while they speak.
Yes. All three sheets are free, need no sign-up or email address, and each one prints on a single A4 page. Worksheet 1 is the picture and word bank round, Worksheet 2 gives fresh practice on in, on and under, and Worksheet 3 moves up to over, beside and between. Full answer keys sit on this page.
One sheet a session, and no more than two sessions a week. Print the first, mark it together, then leave three or four days before the second. That gap is what turns recognition into memory. Doing all three on the same afternoon looks productive but tests only how well your child copies the pattern from the sheet before.
Yes. Class 2 keeps the same nine position words and adds a few more, usually above, below, inside, outside and next to, along with prepositions of time such as on Monday and in June. Start a Class 2 child on Worksheet 3, the harder one. If they finish it easily, the Class 1 base is solid and you can move on.