Year 5 · SPaG · Verb tenses and the perfect form
Year 5 past or present worksheet and PowerPoint
To say whether a sentence is in the present or the past, and to use the simple and progressive forms of both tenses.
Present and past
The tense of a verb tells you when something happens. Each tense has a simple form and a progressive form (the -ing form, for something that is or was going on).
| simple present | the baker carries a bag (every day) |
|---|---|
| present progressive | the baker is carrying a bag (now) |
| simple past | the baker carried a bag (finished) |
| past progressive | the baker was carrying a bag (it was going on) |
| irregular | some verbs do not just add -ed: run → ran, buy → bought |
Examples
- The farmer opens the gate. / The farmer opened the gate.
- The farmer is opening the gate. / The farmer was opening the gate.
Key words
- tense
- the form of a verb that shows when something happens
- progressive
- the -ing form, for something going on
- regular verb
- adds -ed in the past
- irregular verb
- changes in another way: go → went
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. Use the simple form three times and the progressive form three times in each set. Underline the verbs.
Pupil target: I can tell the past from the present and use both.
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 or present PowerPoint.
Where this lesson fits
This is lesson 14 of 43 in the Year 5 SPaG scheme, in the block “Verb tenses and the perfect form”.
Other lessons in this block
- The present perfect form
- Recognising the past perfect form
- Using the past perfect form
- Recognising the future perfect form
- Using the future perfect form
- Recognising the perfect form in sentences
- Using the perfect form in sentences
- Which tense?
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