Prepositions - The Million Dollar Question.

So Joseph is learning about prepositions in school.  This isn't the first time we've talked about them.  We touched on it last year too.  He was working on a worksheet and was frustrated that the little box of prep's to choose from wasn't in fact ALL of the prep. choices.

So I pulled up YouTube and decided it was time to teach him a song so he could learn all of the prepositions.





This was our first find. No go. Try #2. Yup, simple and to the point. That will do.

I thought it was clever.  I thought it would help him learn his prepositions and he would thank me for being such a wonderful teacher who cares about his preposition knowing needs.  I thought it would be a catchy little tune that he would pick up and hum and he would learn his prepositions right away and we would skip around the house singing prepositions and be like the Brady Bunch or something.  (um, for the record, I don't think the Brady Bunch ever skipped around the house singing the prepositions.)

So, in case you aren't catching on here... that is so NOT what happened.

What did happen was a fit that only an 11 year old fed up with school and his teacher (ahem, ME) could throw.  It went something like this:

"Why do I even need to KNOW this?  When in my life is someone ever going to ask me to diagram a sentence?! What does it matter if I know my prepositions?! Is someone ever going to come up to me and say 'Hey, sing the prepositions!"

His rant lasted a bit longer than that, but I think you get the idea.

Honestly, I have no amazing answer for that.  I have survived just fine in life not knowing my prepositions (note: after teaching them, I now know them.  It will come in handy for... um... teaching them to the rest of the kids.).  I couldn't say that though or his English would never get done so my answer was this:

"What if you are on a game show and the million dollar question is 'Can you sing the prepositions'?" Have you seen the show Are you Smarter than a 5th grader?  People lose.  All. the. time.  You could totally win a million bucks if you know your prepositions."

To which he replied "like I'm ever going to be on a game show!"

"Whatever kid.  Here's the iPod go sing the preposition song 3 times and then go finish your English"

and so he did. 

And then Roger came home and we re-lived the Preposition Drama Fest of 2014.  And do you know what my dear husband said when Joseph posed the question "WHY do I need to know prepositions?  At what point in my life will people be like Can you name the prepositions?!" 

He said "What if you are on a game show and it's the $100,000 question?!"

That friends is why I married him. :) Great minds...

Side note: I wish I had a larger group of friends here.  I would TOTALLY organize my own game show.  Winner gets Chick Fil A for dinner.  It's not a million bucks, but for 11 year olds, it's close enough.