Year 4 · SPaG · Verb tenses
Year 4 present perfect or simple past worksheet and PowerPoint
To recognise and use the present perfect and to tell it from the simple past.
Present perfect or simple past
The present perfect uses has or have and the past participle: it links something that happened to now. The simple past is just finished: I washed the car (last week). I have washed the car (it is clean now).
| present perfect | She has finished. We have built a den. |
|---|---|
| simple past | She finished yesterday. We built a den last week. |
| irregular | has gone, have seen, has taken |
Examples
- The dog has barked all morning.
- We have grown vegetables.
Key words
- tense
- the form of a verb that shows when something happens
- progressive
- the -ing form, for something going on
- perfect
- has or have with a past participle
- past participle
- the verb form used after has and have
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 eight sentences about what you have done this week. Use the present perfect in four and the simple past in four.
Pupil target: I can tell the present perfect from the simple past.
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 present perfect or simple past PowerPoint.
Where this lesson fits
This is lesson 21 of 60 in the Year 4 SPaG scheme, in the block “Verb tenses”.
Other lessons in this block
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