Abstract Preparing alcohol by Grignard reaction, a compulsory organic chemistry experiment in university, was studied in this article. Tetrahydrofuran (THF) was selected as the solvent to substitute absolute ether, the non-aqueous processing of reagents, the initiation of Grignard reaction, the dosage of reagents, the post-processing of the reaction, the recrystallization of products and the purity testing of products conducted by thin layer chromatography (TLC) were discussed and improved. The experimental results showed that preparing triphenyl methanol by Grignard reaction in THF reduced the experiment cost significantly, the experiment phenomena were clear with a high yield, and the students' comprehensive experimental abilities were also improved.