Verb Tenses

Verb Tenses Lessons
Verb Tenses Learn to use verb tenses to indicate whether an action took place, is taking place, or will take place.

Verb Tenses Enrichment Strategies - Printables, Games and Hands-on Activities
Single Student	Small Group	Whole Class
Verb Tenses Frayer Printable	Verb Tenses Hands-On Activity	Verb Tenses Class Activity

Free Verb Tenses Word Lists
K-2 Regular Verbs in Different Tenses	Import
K-2 To Have & To Be in Different Tenses	Import
K-2 Verbs in Future Tense	Import
K-2 Verbs in Past Tense	Import

LoginSorry! These lists are available to Premium Members only! If you are a Premium Member, click "Login" to access your account. Premium Verb Tenses Word Lists
K-2 Verbs in Present Tense	Import
3-5 Irregular Verbs - Present & Past	Import
3-5 Regular Verbs - Present & Past	Import
3-5 To Eat and To See in Different Tenses	Import
3-5 Verbs That Double Consonant	Import
6-8 Irregular Verbs in Present & Past	Import
6-8 Verbs in Past Perfect Tense	Import
6-8 Verbs & Their Present & Past Participles	Import
6-8 Verbs in the Future Perfect Tense	Import
9-12 Verb Tenses - Progressive	Import
9-12 Verb Tenses - Perfect Tense	Import
9-12 Verb Tenses - Progressive & Perfect Progressive	Import
9-12 Verb Tenses - Participles	Import

Featured Verb Tenses Games
Elementary School
WhichWord Verb Tenses	MatchIt Verb Tenses	WhichWord Verb Tenses
WhichWord Verb Tenses	MatchIt Verb Tenses	Unscramble Verb Tenses
WhichWord Verb Tenses	MatchIt Verb Tenses	MatchIt Verb Tenses

Middle School
WhichWord Verb Tenses	HangMouse Verb Tenses	MatchIt Verb Tenses	Unscramble Verb Tenses
High School
Unscramble Verb Tenses	WhichWord Verb Tenses	Writing Practice Verb Tenses	MatchIt Verb Tenses

VocabularySpellingCity offers video lessons, interactive games, and printable activities to enhance verb tense learning at four grade bands (K-2, 3-5, 6-8, 9-12). The variety of user-friendly tools helps both teachers and students reach their goals effortlessly.

Teaching Verb Tenses: Time and Action

If you are looking for tools to teach verb tenses, look no further! VocabularySpellingCity has everything from verb tense printable worksheets and presentations to various verb tense games. The wide range of verb tense exercises can be adapted to any lesson. When students use word lists and play word games on VocabularySpellingCity, they read the word definitions and hear spoken examples of the verb tenses within sentences. These games and exercises demonstrate the proper, in-context use of verb tenses. Students hardly realize they're learning important verb forms, even as they play online verb tense games or complete verb tense worksheets. Here are the printable worksheets based on the Featured Games for verb tenses:

• K-2 Regular Verbs in Different Tenses Practice Worksheet
• K-2 To Have & To Be in Different Tenses Practice Worksheet
• K-2 Verbs in Future Tense Practice Worksheet
• K-2 Verbs in Past Tense Practice Worksheet
• K-2 Verbs in Present Tense
• 3-5 Irregular Verbs - Present & Past Practice Worksheet
• 3-5 Regular Verbs - Present & Past Practice Worksheet
• 3-5 To Eat and To See in Different Tenses
• 3-5 Verbs That Double Consonant Practice Worksheet
• 6-8 Irregular Verbs in Present & Past Practice Worksheet
• 6-8 Verbs in Past Perfect Tense Practice Worksheet
• 6-8 Verbs & Their Present & Past Participles Practice Worksheet
• 6-8 Verbs in the Future Perfect Tense Practice Worksheet
• 9-12 Verb Tenses - Progressive Tense Practice Worksheet
• 9-12 Verb Tenses - Perfect Tense Practice Worksheet
• 9-12 Verb Tenses - Progressive and Perfect Progressive Worksheet
• 9-12 Verb Tenses - Participles Practice Worksheet

Importing Verb Tense Lists into Your Account and Customizing Them

• To use these ready-made lists with your students, select "Import" after clicking on the Sample Word Lists button above. You then can customize the lists, in case you want to add or remove words from a list, or even write your own sentences
• If you are focused on certain words and want to hand-pick your verbs and their tenses, it is easy to create a new list. Learn the five simple steps for publishing your own customized lists.
• If you have a premium account, you can assign lists and games to your students and track their activity for differentiated learning.

VocabularySpellingCity helps teachers and parents create lists of verbs that can supplement the students' verb tense learning in fun and enjoyable ways. Simply select as many verbs as you would like and add them to the list in their past tense, present tense, and future tense forms. You can even increase the difficulty level by adding more complex verb tenses. Do a list search for the specific kinds of verb tenses you are looking for to save time by using an existing list. In no time, students will grasp exactly how verb tenses convey an action that has taken place in the past, that is taking place in the present, or that will take place in the future.

Verb Tenses in Early Spoken Language

Children learn the basic idea behind verb tenses quite early, as they see how some things happened yesterday, others are happening right now, and other things will happen tomorrow. Understanding ideas about time doesn't mean children automatically use the correct verb tenses. We've all heard young children move fluidly through different verb forms, mixing up their tenses, sometimes within the same sentence.

Learning Through Modeling Verb Tense Use

As children grow up and increase their exposure to all the verb forms, the distinctions in verb tenses start to multiply. The simple tense expands into perfect tense, progressive tense, and even to perfect progressive, with each of these applied to past, present, and future. Learning how all these tenses are formed and then using them properly can be a daunting prospect.

Using Verb Tenses for Clarity

The various verb tenses allow a speaker or writer to be very specific, not just about when an action occurs, but about whether that action occurs regularly, comes before another action, just keeps going on, or happens once and not again. Verb tenses allow verbs to be very powerful. But even when students need to know and understand the verb tenses list, it still takes practice using verb tenses exercises before the correct formation and use of these tenses comes naturally to students. Try making your own list of past, present, and future verbs to help your students learn the verb tenses!

This verb tenses list summarizes all the tenses for regular verbs:

1. Past Tense
• Simple (merely happened at some indefinite time in the past) - I talked.
• Perfect (action that started and finished in the past) - I had talked.
• Progressive (ongoing action that happened sometime in the past) - I was talking.
• Perfect Progressive (ongoing action that started, continued, and finally stopped in the past) - I had been talking.
2. Present Tense
• Simple (considered to be happening right now, or which happens regularly) - I talk.
• Perfect (a finished action, viewed from right now) - I have talked.
• Progressive (action continuing at this moment, or which starts and goes on for a while, on a regular basis) - I am talking.
• Perfect Progressive (ongoing action that has recently finished) - I have been talking.
3. Future Tense
• Simple (will happen in the future) - I will talk.
• Perfect (will start and finish in the future, before a second action takes place) - I will have talked.
• Progressive (will start and continue in the future) - I will be talking.
• Perfect Progressive (will start and continue in the future, before a specific time) - I will have been talking.

Meeting the Common Core State Standards

The Common Core State Standards for Language Arts set out a program of gradual familiarization and mastering of verb tenses, especially through elementary school. For example, in second grade, students should, "form and use the past tense of frequently occurring irregular verbs (e.g., sat, hid, told)" whereas by the end of fifth grade, students should "use verb tense to convey various times, sequences, states, and condition". The age-appropriate lists of verbs that educators create at VocabularySpellingCity can help children at each grade level develop proficiency in verb tenses, both for regular verbs (I talk, I talked, I will talk) and irregular verbs (I am, I was, I will be).

Verb Tenses at a glance:

K-2 - To Be & To Have in Different Tenses: am, is, are, was, were, will be, have, has, had, will have

K-2 - Regular Verbs in Different Tenses: talk, talks, talked, will talk, smile, smiles, smiled, will smile, was smiling, was talking

K-2 - Verbs in the Past Tense: end, ended, give, gave, want, wanted, meet, met, fly, flew

K-2 - Verbs in the Present Tense: read, reads, sing, sings, push, pushes, yell, yells, itch, itches

K-2 - Verbs in the Future Tense: sing, will sing, walk, will walk, own, will own, jog, will jog, call, will call

3-5 - To Eat & To See in Different Tenses: eat, eats, ate, will eat eating, see, sees, saw, seeing, will see

3-5 - Verbs That Double a Consonant in Different Tenses: hug, hugs, hugged, sip, sips, sipped. scrub, scrubs, scrubbed

3-5 - Regular Verbs in the Present & Past Tenses: arrive, arrived, report, reported, cough, coughed, turn, turned, manage, managed

3-5 - Irregular Verbs in the Present & Past Tenses: write, wrote, wind, wound, forget, forgot, scrub, scrubbed, swim, swam

6-8 - Irregular Verbs in the Present & Past Tenses: break, breaks, broke, speak, speaks, spoke, shine, shines, shone

6-8 - Verbs in the Past Perfect Tense: repeat, had repeated, deal, had dealt, whisper, had whispered, partake, had partaken, embarrass, had embarrassed

6-8 - Verbs & Their Present & Past Participles: begin, beginning, begun, ride, riding, ridden, buy, buying, bought

6-8 - Verbs in the Past Perfect Tense: excuse, will have excused, choose, will have chosen, promise, will have promised, drive, will have driven, catch, will have caught

9-12 - Verb Tenses - Participles: forbid, forbidding, forbidden, break, breaking, broken, undergo, undergoing, undergone

9-12 - Verb Tenses - Progressive: was floundering, were pondering, am exercising, is contemplating, are elaborating, will be graduating, was studying, were knitting, am becoming, is knitting

9-12 - Verb Tenses - Perfect Tense: had listened, have composed, will have polished, had overslept, have understood, will have regaled, had deserved, have discussed, will have calculated, had withdrawn

9-12 - Verb Tenses - Progressive and Perfect Progressive: was competing, had been surveying, am striking, have been regretting, will be spreading, will be queueing, was despairing, had been having, am tiring, have been reevaluating