Exploring Language
Daily Language Investigations for English Language Arts
Lesson 1.4a The Five Forms of the Main Verb
downloadable worksheet
Every verb has five forms: infinitive, past tense, present tense, past participle, present participle. Here are two examples.
infinitive: (to) talk
past tense: talked
present tense: (he/she/it) talks (I/you/we/they) talk
past participle: (has/have) talked
present participle: (am/is/are) talking
infinitive: (to) sing
past tense: sang
present tense: (he/she/it) sings (I/you/we/they) sing
past participle: (has/have) sung
present participle: (am/is/are) singing
Activity: Come up with verbs and put them into the frames below to come up with the five forms for each verb. Where is there overlap?
infinitive: I really want to ___________ today.
present tense: She __________ on most days.
past tense: He __________ yesterday.
present participle: They are/were ___________ at noon.
past participle: We have/had already ___________ before they arrived.
[Teacher notes: You may want to use the “verb form chart” here or create your own. See comments on identifying present and on dialectal variation in Lesson 1.4d. See more on progressive and perfect aspects in Lesson 1.4e and 1.4f.]
key words: verb, tense, aspect, progressive, perfect
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.3.1e: Form and use the simple (e.g., I walked; I walk; I will walk) verb tenses.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.4.1b: Form and use the progressive (e.g., I was walking; I am walking; I will be walking) verb tenses.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L5.1b: Form and use the perfect (e.g., I had walked; I have walked; I will have walked) verb tenses.
Here is this lesson as a pdf.