I forget which web site I read with this advice about using a monster to explain the mysterious part of speech known as a preposition–and a lot of the ideas we brainstormed in class Thursday are not quite prepositions–but it was a helpful exercise.
To explain prepositions, we draw a box (helpfully labeled “Box”) next to a monster (if you don’t like Mike Wazowski, you can try a vampire, a kaiju, or a Hellboy). Ask the class how they can fill in the blank: “The monster ______ the box.”
Many of the initial answers will focus around physical dimensions (“The monster under the box”; “The monster next to the box”; “The monster in the box”; “The monster above the box”), so you then can re-label the box to a more abstract concept, such as time (“Friday”) and try another set of sample sentences (“The monster during Friday,” “The monster on Friday”).
Derek S. McGrath 