Preposition Worksheet for Class 2
Three free printable PDFs, with answers
In Class 2 a preposition stops being only a place word. It now does three jobs: it says where something is (above the shelf), when something happens (at 6 o'clock, on Monday, in June), and which way something moves (into the van, across the road, through the tunnel). Class 1 taught only the first of those three.
The hard half is time, and it comes down to one rule your child can hold in their head: at for a clock time, on for a day or a date, in for a month, a season or a year. Smallest to biggest. The three sheets on this page take one job each, and the last one mixes all three the way a class test does.
No sign-up. Answer keys are further down this page.
- Class 2 adds two whole new jobs to the same little words: time (at, on, in) and direction (into, out of, towards, across, through, up, down). Place words carry on from Class 1 inside longer sentences.
- The time rule is smallest to biggest. at is one point on the clock, on is one whole day or date, in is a month, a season or a year. The only word that breaks the pattern is at night.
- "In Monday", "on the morning" and "in 5 o'clock" are the three errors almost every Class 2 child makes. They are all the same error: the size of the time has not been matched to the size of the word.
- in is a place, into is a movement. "Get into the bus" is what English needs when the child is climbing in. "The bag is in the bus" is where it already sits.
What changes in Class 2: three jobs, same small words
If your child came through Class 1, they already know what a preposition is for. It told them where something sat: in the bag, on the desk, under the chair. Class 2 keeps every one of those words and then hands them two extra jobs, which is why a child who was fine last year can suddenly look lost.
Here is the whole year in one table.
| The job | Words your child will meet | A Class 2 sentence |
|---|---|---|
| Place: where something is | in, on, under, above, below, beside, between, behind, in front of, inside, outside, near | The old clock hangs above the blackboard. |
| Time: when something happens | at, on, in | Our sports day is on 12 December. |
| Direction: which way something moves | into, out of, towards, across, through, up, down | The frog jumped into the pond. |
Three things get harder this year, and it is worth naming them so you know what you are looking at when a sheet comes back marked.
- The sentences get longer. Class 1 asked about "The cat is ___ the mat", five words. Class 2 asks about "Farhan sat ___ me in the school van this morning", ten words. The preposition is the same difficulty. The reading around it is not.
- Past tense arrives. Jumped, walked, climbed, reached. A child still sounding out climbed has less attention left for choosing between up and on.
- One word now has two meanings. On is a place in "the book is on the table" and a day in "on Monday". In is inside in "the pen is in my bag" and a month in "in June". Children who were shaky on the place meaning find the second meaning genuinely confusing, because they are still deciding what the first one was.
The three worksheets on this page split the load rather than piling it on. Worksheet 1 is place words only, at Class 2 sentence length. Worksheet 2 is time only, at, on and in, nothing else. Worksheet 3 mixes place, time and direction and ends with a passage, which is what a class test actually looks like.
Worth knowing: if your child gets place words right and time words wrong, nothing has gone backwards. Those are two different skills that happen to share three letters. Treat the time sheet as a fresh topic, not as revision.
The at, on, in time rule (the hard half)
This is the part of Class 2 prepositions that decides the marks, and it is also the part most home practice skips, because it feels like something a child should just pick up. They do not just pick it up. English gives three different words to one idea, and nothing in the sentence tells you which to use except how big the piece of time is.
That is the whole rule, and it is small enough for a six year old to hold: smallest to biggest.
| Word | Use it for | Say it like this |
|---|---|---|
| at | a clock time, one exact point | at 6 o'clock, at 7:30, at half past four, at lunch time |
| on | a day or a date, one whole day | on Monday, on Sunday, on 15 August, on my birthday, on Diwali |
| in | a month, a season or a year, a long stretch | in June, in summer, in the holidays, in 2026 |
| in | a part of the day | in the morning, in the afternoon, in the evening |
| at | night, and only night | at night |
Read the first three rows top to bottom with your child and the pattern does the teaching for you. A clock time is the smallest piece of time there is, so it gets at. A day is bigger, so it gets on. A month, a season or a year is biggest, so it gets in.
Two things to say out loud while you teach it, because both come up in every Class 2 test paper:
- Parts of the day sit with the big words. In the morning, in the afternoon, in the evening. They feel small, they behave big.
- Night is the odd one. At night, not in the night. There is no reason for it and no rule behind it. It simply has to be heard often enough to sound right, so say it in ordinary conversation for a week: "We shut the windows at night." "It gets cold here at night."
A five minute drill that works better than a page of blanks: ask your child three questions a day and insist the answer comes back as a full sentence. What time does your school start? Which day is your dance class? When is your birthday? The answers are forced to carry at, on and in, and your child hears themselves say the right one instead of reading it.
Do not teach all five rows in one sitting. Do the three main ones today, clock, day, month. Come back for the part of the day and at night two or three days later, once the first three are automatic. Every Class 2 child who is confused about time words was taught all of it at once.
Direction words: into, out of, across, through
The second new family is direction. These words do not say where something is sitting, they say which way it is going, and that difference is the whole idea. Class 2 textbooks slip them in quietly inside stories rather than teaching them as a list, so plenty of children meet them without ever being told they are a separate group.
| Word | What it means when you move | Example |
|---|---|---|
| into | going from outside to inside | Latika ran into the classroom. |
| out of | coming from inside to outside | The cat jumped out of the basket. |
| towards | moving in the direction of something | A brown dog came towards our gate. |
| across | from one side to the other side | We walked across the busy road. |
| through | in one end and out the other | The train went through a dark tunnel. |
| up / down | to a higher place, to a lower place | The monkey climbed up the mango tree. |
One pair inside this family causes more corrections than all the others together, and it is worth ten minutes on its own: in against into.
- in tells you where something already is. The bag is in the van. The pencils are in the pouch. Nothing is moving.
- into tells you something is going inside. Arjun got into the van. The frog jumped into the pond. There is movement, and it ends up inside.
- "Get in the bus" is the sentence to listen for. Almost every Indian child says it, because it is what they hear at the school gate every morning. Written work wants get into the bus. Spoken English at the bus stop will not change, and that is fine. The sheet is only asking for the written form.
Show it with your body rather than your voice. Stand outside a room, say "I am going into the room" while you walk in, then stop and say "now I am in the room". Two sentences, one movement, and the difference stops being a spelling and becomes something your child watched happen.
Never mark "get in the bus" in red. It is the English your child hears spoken around them every single day, which makes it a very sensible thing to have learnt. Say the written version back warmly, let them repeat it once, and move on. The habit changes by hearing, not by correction.
The four Class 2 mistakes, and the fix for each
Four errors cover nearly every wrong answer on a Class 2 preposition sheet. None of them is carelessness, and all four have a fix that takes less than five minutes.
| What your child writes | What English needs | Why it happens, and the fix |
|---|---|---|
| I have a test in Monday. | I have a test on Monday. | A day feels small, so the child reaches for the small word. Say the smallest-to-biggest line again: clock, day, month. |
| We eat on the morning. | We eat in the morning. | A morning sounds like part of a day, so on comes first. Teach the four together as one block: in the morning, in the afternoon, in the evening, at night. |
| The bell rings in 5 o'clock. | The bell rings at 5 o'clock. | The clock time is the smallest piece of time there is, so it takes the smallest word. Ask "what time" three times a day and insist on a full sentence. |
| Get in the bus. | Get into the bus. | This is spoken Indian English, heard daily. Walk into a room, then stand in it, and say both sentences aloud. |
Once you can see which of the four is happening, the sheets become a check rather than a lesson. Here is the order that works at home.
Teach the three time words with a calendar in front of you
Point at a clock, then at one square on the calendar, then at the whole month at the top. Say at, on, in as you point. Ten seconds, three pointings, and your child has seen why the words are different sizes instead of being told to remember them.
Ask, do not tell, for two days
What time do you leave for school? Which day do you have PT class? What month is your birthday in? Three questions a day, answered in a full sentence, before any sheet is printed. Correct gently by saying the whole sentence back the right way.
One sheet, then a gap of three days
Print Worksheet 1 first, mark it together, and leave the time sheet for later in the week. A gap is what turns recognition into memory. All three sheets on one afternoon tests only how well your child copies the pattern from the sheet before.
Ask why before you say right or wrong
"Why did you choose that one?" The reason tells you which of the four errors it is, and each one needs a different fix. A child who says "because Monday is small" has understood the rule perfectly and applied it to the wrong thing, which is a two minute conversation, not a reteach.
Ten minutes, not thirty. Stop while your child is still getting answers right. A preposition sheet abandoned halfway teaches them that English is the subject where they fail, and that is far more expensive to undo than any wrong on.
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 where the wrong answers cluster tells you more than the score does.
| If the wrong answers cluster here | The gap is | The five minute fix |
|---|---|---|
| Sheet 1, the word bank round | above against below, or beside against between | Stand in the room and name four places out loud, pointing as you say each one |
| Sheet 2, the AT column | Clock times are not yet linked to at | Ask "what time" three times a day and insist on a full sentence back |
| Sheet 2, on and in swapped | Days and months feel like the same size | Point at a clock, one calendar square, then the whole month, saying at, on, in |
| Sheet 3, in against into | Movement is not being heard as different from place | Walk into a room, stop, and say both sentences out loud |
Worksheet 1
Exercise 1: Write the right place word in each blank
- The old clock hangs above the blackboard in our class.
- Jaya wrote her full name below the red line.
- Farhan sat beside me in the school van this morning.
- Our house is between the bakery and the post office.
Each word is used once, so a wrong answer always comes in a pair. Find its partner and fix both together.
Exercise 2: Circle the right word
- The sweets are in the big steel box.
- My water bottle is on the table near the door.
- Neel is standing outside the class, in the corridor.
Exercise 3: Draw a line to join the two halves
- Zoya keeps her lunch box → 3. inside her school bag.
- The sleepy puppy lay → 4. below the wooden stairs.
- Our new house is → 2. between two old shops.
- The school flag flies → 1. above the main building.
Exercise 4: Read it aloud, then underline every place word
There are five, listed here in the order they appear:
- Our classroom is on the first floor,
- above the school office.
- A big green board hangs in front of the first bench.
- Sameer sits beside me
- and keeps his bag below his chair.
"In front of" is three words and counts as one answer, so accept all three underlined together. A child who underlines the naming words instead, such as board or bench, has read the question as "underline the important words". Ask it again, stressing place.
Worksheet 2
Exercise 1: Write each time word in the right box
- AT: 6 o'clock, night
- ON: Monday, my birthday, 15 August
- IN: June, summer, 2026, the evening
Nine words, three boxes. If the evening landed in the AT box, that is the at night exception leaking across. Only night takes at.
Exercise 2: Write at, on or in in each blank
- Our school van reaches the gate at 7 o'clock every morning.
- Farhan has his swimming class on Tuesday and Friday.
- The summer holidays in our school begin in May.
- We visited our grandmother on 15 August last year.
- The street lights come on in the evening.
- My baby brother wakes up twice at night.
Exercise 3: Tick the correct sentence
- (i) We have a test on Monday.
- (ii) Neel finished his homework in the evening.
- (ii) The school bell rings at 8 o'clock.
- (i) Zoya's birthday comes in June.
The correct one is not always first, on purpose. A child who ticked (i) four times was reading the pattern, not the sentences.
Exercise 4: Write about your own week
Answers will differ from child to child. Mark it right if the word after the given preposition matches its size: a clock time after at, a day after on, a month after in. "I wake up at 6 o'clock", "I go to school on Monday", "My birthday is in April" are all full ticks.
Worksheet 3
Exercise 1: Write the right place word in each blank
- A big round clock hangs above the classroom door.
- Our house is between the bakery and the medical shop.
- We left our chappals outside the temple before going in.
Exercise 2: Write at, on or in in each blank
- Our sports day is on 12 December this year.
- The last bus leaves the stop at 6:30 every evening.
- Pooja learnt to swim in the summer holidays.
One of each, in no order: a date takes on, a clock time takes at, a long stretch takes in.
Exercise 3: Write the right direction word in each blank
- The frog jumped into the pond with a loud splash.
- Latika took her tiffin box out of her school bag.
- A brown dog came running towards us near the gate.
- We walked across the busy road holding our mother's hand.
Four words, four blanks, each used once. Towards and across are the pair children swap most often. If those two are the only wrong ones, that is a good sheet.
Exercise 4: Circle in or into
- My pencils are in the blue pouch. (nothing is moving)
- The cat ran into the kitchen when it rained. (moving inside)
Exercise 5: Read the passage and answer
- When did they reach the park? At seven o'clock. Accept "seven o'clock" without the at, but say the full answer back once.
- Where did the writer sit? Beside his father, on a stone bench. Accept either half on its own.
- The three direction words in the passage are across, towards and out of. All three are needed for a full tick.
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 rule is missing, the reading is missing, or they simply rushed. Three different problems, three different fixes.
A preposition sheet can see the blank. It cannot hear the sentence.
Every exercise on these three sheets is silent. Your child can circle into, tick the right box and fill six blanks without once reading "The frog jumped into the pond" out loud, because a circle needs only pattern recognition. That is the half a printable page has no way to check, and in Class 2 it is the half that matters most, since the sentences are now ten words long and full of past tense words like climbed and reached.
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Frequently asked questions
A preposition tells you where something is, when something happens, or which way it moves. Class 2 is the year all three arrive together. Place words like above, below and between carry on from Class 1. Time words at, on and in are new, and so are direction words such as into, across and through. Most schools teach place first and time last, because time is the harder half.
Smallest to biggest. Use at for a clock time, because that is one exact point: at 6 o'clock, at 7:30. Use on for a day or a date, which is one whole day: on Monday, on 15 August. Use in for a month, a season or a year, the longest stretches: in June, in summer, in 2026. Parts of the day take in, but night takes at.
Because a single day feels small, so your child reaches for the smallest word they know. It is the rule being applied, just to the wrong size of time. Say the smallest-to-biggest line again while pointing: a clock takes at, one calendar square takes on, the whole month at the top takes in. Three pointings do more than ten corrections.
In tells you where something already is and nothing is moving: the pencils are in the pouch. Into tells you something is going from outside to inside: the frog jumped into the pond. This is why written English wants "get into the bus" even though every child in India hears "get in the bus" at the school gate. Show it by walking into a room, then standing in it.
Yes. All three sheets are free, need no sign-up or email address, and each preposition sheet for Class 2 prints on a single A4 page. Worksheet 1 covers place words at Class 2 sentence length, Worksheet 2 is time only with at, on and in, and Worksheet 3 mixes place, time and direction and ends with a passage. Full answer keys sit on this page.
Class 1 does position only: in, on, under and a few more, inside five word sentences. Class 2 keeps all of those and adds prepositions of time and prepositions of direction, inside sentences of eight to ten words that now use past tense. The words look identical, which is exactly why it trips children up. Same little word, three completely different jobs.