An Idea on Introducing The Past Simple Verbs

It was only last year that I had to introduce verbs in The Past Simple Tense to kids. I did not want to write all the verbs down with their past forms. I wanted something that my kids could enjoy in the process and had a chance to see the past forms all the time. So, I came up with this tree idea.

We designed a cardboard tree where kids can hang leaves on which they wrote the verbs. On each leaf, they wrote one verb with the past form on one side. They coloured the side with the past form brown, and obviously the other side green. The tree is still hung on the bulletin board. It really helped them to memorise the verbs, and when they do not remember, they just walk over to the board and check!

Moreover, to better enable my kids’ ability to use the past forms, I prepared cards with the verbs both in present and past forms and sometimes as a warm-up activity I show one verb –either in past or present- and ask for the other form. The student who claps her/his hand first gets to answer first.

Also, though I have never done it due to the size of my class, each kid can have one verb –again either past of present form -  by mingling in the classroom they can find their pair. I actually did it on the board and asked them to come to the front and match the verbs. 

Below you can see  my tree. It's not that big since the board was not big enough. Still I hope you can get an idea.

P.S: You can download the verb cards that I prepared from here:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bzi_uqEZ0_7qZmE2TmZaUmk3ZFk&authuser=0