Headliners

Past Tense Verbs Activity

Before the activity: Cut out enough newspaper sections for each child. It is a good idea to read over them first to make sure there are no inappropriate words or ideas. Also, put an X on the side of the newspaper that you DO NOT want the children to use.

The activity: Give each child a highlighter and a section of the newspaper. At this point you could have a discussion about the newspaper. Talk about how most of the stories in the newspaper have already happened so that the students would understand they are looking for things in the past. That could give the children a better understanding of what the newspaper actually is. Then ask them to find the past tense verbs in their section of newspaper and highlight them. Also ask them to try to figure out when in the past that action happened.

*This activity could be adapted to include any language arts skill. Example: Highlight or underline proper nouns in red, contractions in blue, verbs in green, and adjectives in yellow.

*Technology Option: Using Microsoft Word create a paragraph to be used in the same manner as the newspaper activity. Instruct the students to go to the computer and find the specified part of speech in the paragraph and follow these directions:

1. Highlight the word with the mouse.

2. Right click on the mouse and choose Font.

3. Go to Font Color and click on drop down menu.

4. Choose the appropriate color.

5. Click OK

Directions: Make the nouns pink

Once upon a time there were three bears. They all lived in a house in the woods. There was a papa bear, a momma bear and a baby bear.