While I do not condone screaming, bratty, kids, which I made very clear to the kiddos! That is what we pretended to be last week during grammar in fifth grade. I'm sorry? ;0)
In order to remember present tense, I told them to think of a whining child yelling, "I want my present NOW!" This helps us keep in mind that the present tense sentences include verbs occurring at this VERY moment. We had a good time with this, but I reminded them that if they were my child the consequence of that screaming display would not be a fun one ;0)
We looked at three present tense linking verbs - AM, IS, ARE - and how we always want to combine these with THREE little letters -ING to create the present tense we remembered this using a 3 for 3 memory technique. Use one of the THREE linking verbs and and THREE letters -ing. I recreated this anchor chart for our room.
Like future tense, I gave them the task of looking for a present tense sentence during their independent reading time.
In order to remember present tense, I told them to think of a whining child yelling, "I want my present NOW!" This helps us keep in mind that the present tense sentences include verbs occurring at this VERY moment. We had a good time with this, but I reminded them that if they were my child the consequence of that screaming display would not be a fun one ;0)
We looked at three present tense linking verbs - AM, IS, ARE - and how we always want to combine these with THREE little letters -ING to create the present tense we remembered this using a 3 for 3 memory technique. Use one of the THREE linking verbs and and THREE letters -ing. I recreated this anchor chart for our room.
Like future tense, I gave them the task of looking for a present tense sentence during their independent reading time.
When I was sharing with them how we don't say, "I is going to the movies" I explained that, while many of us may not struggle with the talking part of verb tenses, it is in WRITING that the struggle becomes apparent. SO often, kids, and adults, {myself included} will either get wrapped up in their writing, or forget to reread sections and find that their story ribbons through lots of accidentally written tenses. While sometimes this is intentional in a story, a lot of times it isn't and can really confuse the reader. In order to practice staying within a verb tense, we looked at a very "exciting" picture with lots of ACTION going on {great for boys!} and they wrote, as if they were a reporter coming upon this scene, what they are seeing, hearing, feeling, etc. AT THIS VERY MOMENT! They HAD to stay in the present tense using AM, IS, ARE and -ing verbs to describe the scene. They really enjoyed this activity and the picture spurred quite a discussion about how this appeared to be anarchy {yay previous government vocabulary word!} and what may have occurred to place the capital in such danger. For our assessment, I had them create a three sentences, each using one linking verb and adding an -ing verb.
The last verb tense is PAST. This is definitely the easiest for kids to pick out in reading as well as write independently. The biggest reason for this is that it is the chosen writing tense for stories - much of what people read. We looked at regular vs. irregular past tense verbs. Regular verbs add an -ed at the end to make it past. Irregular verbs do not follow a distinct rule, they simply must be recognized. We worked together to create a simple past and past participle chart of common verbs to help us recognize them.
Again, like we did with the last two tenses, I encouraged them to look for past tense sentences during their independent reading. This proved to be a MUCH easier task for them and some kids really went wild with it :)
For our quick assessment, students wrote three past tense sentences using a verb given (to grab, to have, to sing).
For our quick assessment, students wrote three past tense sentences using a verb given (to grab, to have, to sing).