Learn Tenses | 4 activities for your kid

Tenses are an important part of English grammar; they can be a challenge to understand right away. Tenses help to connect an action with the flow of time. Just like adjectives are necessary to describe the qualities of a noun, tenses are necessary to understand when an action is taking place. 

You can gamify the whole learning exercise to make tenses easier for kids; here are a few ways. 

Visual Aids

Pictures are a great way to get started with tenses. For example, if you want to teach them different verb tenses, you can get pictures off the internet of a girl who is about to run a race. If you can create a sequence of images, it works best. She is starting the race, running, and eventually winning the race. 

Storytelling

Show your kid a picture. This can even be an old photograph and ask them to create a story around the things or people in the picture. While they use their imagination to create a story, the sequence of events in the tale will involve the tenses. If your kid is too young to tell stories, ask them to come up with simple sentences and describe the picture.

Color the Tenses

Type out a short paragraph and give it to your kid. Ask them to identify different tenses by highlighting them on the page. They can color the past tenses in yellow,  the present tenses in blue, the future tenses in red, and so on.

Verb Flashcards

Write down a list of verbs on index cards. Now show your kid these flashcards one at a time and ask them for the verb's present, past, and future tenses. You can also participate in the game by passing a few index cards to your kid and asking them to flash them to you. 

Head over to byjuslearning.com to learn more about our Active Learning approach to Math, Language, and Reading for children between Pre-K and Grade 3.