Verb Worksheets & Activities

I’ll be the first to admit that teaching about verbs was never appealing to me. I have memories learning about AND teaching parts of speech where my eyes were completely glazed over. I thought that it was almost, if not, impossible to make parts of speech fun and meaningful. This was definitely a difficult task, because I didn’t want a collection of boring verb worksheets. I wanted activities that involved my students and encouraged active learning.

Identifying Verbs

Students have to first learn what a verb is and how to identify a verb. One fun idea is to let students design a verb collage where they cut out pictures that show action and label the pictures on construction paper. Students can also think about action verbs in relation to sports. Have students label a sport in the center of a web graphic organizer and then name verbs associated with that sport. Since I don’t always have much time for grammar, so I wanted to create verb worksheets that were manageable.

Verb charades is a quick and easy way for students to practice identifying verbs. Place verb cards in a bag, bowl, or box and allow one student to select a card. The student should act out the word without saying anything, and classmates try to guess what verb is being acted out. The first student to guess correctly gets to have the next turn.

Linking & Helping Verbs

After teaching students about action verbs, I introduce linking verbs. When teaching concepts such as linking verbs, be sure to include activities that help make abstract concepts a little more concrete for students. For example, in this linking verb activity, students use linking verbs to literally link parts of a sentence together.

It was also important to include a few verb activities that included movement, such as this helping verbs activity. Students make cubes with action verbs and helping verbs and roll the cubes to create sentences.

Cumulative review is important, so have students practice with verb worksheets and games that can be used for language centers or early finisher activities.

Verb Worksheets – Verb Tenses

During your verb instruction, you’ll also need to teach students about verb tenses. In the introduction activity below, students match past, present, and future verb tenses.

Students also enjoy making this graphic organizer where they show different verb tenses. The same content can be taught through a traditional verb worksheet, but students enjoy the change.

After teaching verb tenses, you can teach subject verb agreement. My verb unit wouldn’t be complete without task cards, so I was sure to include those too!

I liked ending this verb unit with a culminating game. It’s a great way to review all the concepts taught in the unit!

You can check out the Verb Unit in my TpT Store. You can also save by purchasing the Common Core Language Bundle, which teachers all of the Common Core language standards. Common Core Language Bundle