Year 3 · SPaG · Verb tenses
Year 3 past and present tense (1) worksheet and PowerPoint
To recognise and use the simple past and the simple present.
Past and present
The tense of a verb tells you when something happens. The simple present tells you what happens now or often: the baker carries a bag. The simple past tells you it has finished: the baker carried a bag. Some verbs change completely in the past: run → ran, buy → bought.
| present | I walk to school. She walks to school. |
|---|---|
| past | I walked to school. She walked to school. |
| irregular past | go → went, see → saw, eat → ate, take → took |
Examples
- The dog barks every night.
- The dog barked last night.
Key words
- tense
- the form of a verb that shows when something happens
- past
- already happened
- present
- happening now or happens often
- verb
- a doing or being word
What is on the worksheet
Every sheet for this lesson has a short teaching box and 12 questions that get gradually harder: 8 fluency questions, then 4 reasoning questions that ask pupils to explain or choose. A writing challenge follows. The questions use the same styles as the key stage 2 grammar and punctuation test (circle, underline, tick, fill the gap, add punctuation, rewrite, explain). They are written for this website, not copied from past papers.
All the answers are on the last page of the same editable Word file. New questions are made every time, so you can print a different sheet for every group or for homework. The same sheet code always gives the same sheet.
Writing challenge: Write six sentences about yesterday and six about today. Underline the verbs.
Pupil target: I can tell the past from the present.
The PowerPoint
A 20-slide lesson deck for the same lesson: a starter that revisits earlier learning, key words, an I do and a You do question on each slide with a countdown timer, answers that appear one click at a time, and a challenge. Download the past and present tense (1) PowerPoint.
Where this lesson fits
This is lesson 7 of 53 in the Year 3 SPaG scheme, in the block “Verb tenses”.
Other lessons in this block
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