07 Jul How to Teach Tenses In Fun Way?

How To Teach Tenses For Kids In Fun Way?

It’s undeniable that most of us are not required to know the meaning of ‘past continuous present’ in our daily lives. But one must use the same correctly while speaking or writing. Most of the time, children pick up the right use of verb tenses naturally.

But there are some benefits to understanding and being able to name tenses, particularly for those new to the English language and struggling with irregular verbs. Thankfully, there are some activities and games on tenses to help with the same.

Concrete knowledge of English tenses will help children develop their skills in writing, speaking, and listening. But most children get bored with classes in grammar. They get tired when a teacher tries to hone their skills in English verb tenses through exercises over and over again.

To throw the difficulty and boredom out of the learning time for children, the following are some fun games and activities that make easy learning of tenses for kids:

Make Questions

It is quite natural that one’s child might find it tough to form questions in various tenses. Thus, basing activities around questions will help improve the ability of children to use various tenses while forming questions. In such activities, one can use prompt words like soda/ burger and note how many questions they can form with them.

 Conduct Quizzes

This activity needs two participants. Use card templates that contain 16 sentences without a relevant tense verb. All cards feature a sentence like: She_____________ to the church every morning (Go). The child will pick up a single card template and identify the missing tense, which makes the sentence sensible. This will test the skill of the child in understanding narrative tenses.

 Use Sing-Along

Begin this activity by the introduction of the child to a music artist or band and thereafter, asking the child to hear their songs many times. Next, hand them a sheet with fill-in-the-blanks of lyrics of the songs or get them to learn and perform the songs themselves. These grammar activities will provide one’s child with the practical skill of making use of tenses in sentences.

 Name The Tenses

Using this activity, the child can be helped to understand the operations of tenses in English and how they differ. Provide them with passages extracted from the internet, magazines, or newspapers and ask them to identify the various tenses used in them. One can even offer a time limit and encourage them to identify a specific number of tenses within that limit.

 Matching Up Lego Bricks

Another activity on tenses is to play with the children’s favourite Lego bricks. Almost all kids love Lego bricks, and one can use them for a fun grammar learning activity. Stick irregular verbs and their corresponding future or past tense onto individual Lego bricks. Ask the child to match the various bricks.

 Recount Story from Picture

Present a child with a picture, ask them to view it closely, and then make up a story of what they perceive. Ask her to recount the story in the present, past, and future tenses. Such activity will improve the child’s skill in tense formation as well as how to use it.

 Allow Characters To Teach

To teach English verb tenses, one can use verb usage from a make-believe story that the child can spin around a few given characters. The story can be illogical or logical as per the inclination of the child. Only ensure that he or she uses many verbs and different tenses in the story.

Such activities can help a child learn how to build sentences and how to make use of tenses in the English language.

In sum, these are some fun ways to teach one’s child to use tenses of verbs in the language. Tense games can prove much more effective tools for learning than other ways.