Session 31: Past tense

Intro Activity (15 minutes):

             “Yesterday,I….”! 

•   Students want to sit in a circle 
  
•  The first student starts by saying a sentence beginning with:  
•    “Yesterday, I…” and completes it with an activity using a past tense verb.  

   Example:  

1.    “Yesterday, I played football.”
2.    “Yesterday, I ate mangoes.”
   

• The next student must repeat the previous sentence(s) and add their own.  

    Example:  

   “Yesterday, I played football, and I watched TV.”

•  Continue around the circle. Each student adds one more sentence to the chain, using a new past tense verb.
•  If someone forgets or makes a mistake, offer support and gently correct the tense if needed.

Main Topic/ Activity (60 minutes):

     What is Past Tense? (20 minutes)                                  

• The past tense is used to talk about something that already happened. It tells us about actions or events that took place before now — yesterday, last week, or even just a minute ago!
  

 Types of Past Tense Verbs:

1. Regular Verbs – We just add -ed- at the end.

   walk → walked  

    jump → jumped  

   clean → cleaned  

2. Irregular Verbs – The spelling changes completely or doesn't follow a rule.

    go → went  

   eat → ate  

   buy → bought  

•  Give them more examples of irregular verbs

               Story Time (20 minutes)                        

• Tell the students that the story you are telling about is something that happened yesterday.

 Story = “Raju’s Busy Day”

  Yesterday, Raju woke up early. He brushed his teeth and ate a banana. Then, he packed his bag and ran to school. At school, he wrote a test and drew a picture in art class. After school, he played with his friends and came home tired. He watched TV, read a book, and finally, he slept.

• Write this story on the board and call students to underline past tense verbs on the board." 

Purpose: Children connect deeply with stories. When a story is told in the past tense, it provides a natural, engaging way to introduce and reinforce past tense verb forms without a heavy grammar focus.

Charades: Past Tense Edition (20 minutes)                                  

•  Write a mix of regular and irregular past tense verbs on small pieces of paper.
•  Fold and place them in a bowl or container.
•  Divide the class into two teams.
•  One student from Team A comes up and picks a slip from the bowl.
• The student then has 30 seconds to act out the verb without speaking.
  
•  Their team tries to guess the verb in past tense (e.g., “danced”, not “dance”).
  
•  If the team guesses correctly within the time, they score a point.
  
•  If not, the other team gets one chance to guess and steal the point!
•  Then it’s Team B’s turn, and the game continues.

Example Verbs to Include:

Regular: walked, cooked, cleaned, smiled, jumped, clapped 

Irregular: ate, went, ran, drank, sang, wrote, slept, drove  

• The team with the most correct guesses at the end of the game wins!

Follow up Tasks (5 minutes):

Quickly review:

•   What are regular verbs?
•   What are irregular verbs?

For homework: Ask students to write 5 sentences using simple past tense (3 regular + 2 irregular)

Review Questions/Assessment/Tasks (10 minutes):

Fill in the Blanks” board activity:

1.  I ___ (go) to school yesterday. → went  
   
2. She ___ (play) football. → played  
   
3. They ___ (eat) ice cream. → ate  
   
4. We ___ (watch) a movie. → watched
   

Expected Learning  Outcome:

Knowledge building:

• Identify the concept of past tense and recognize when to use it in everyday situations.  
  
• Use regular and irregular verbs in simple past tense form while speaking and writing short sentences.  
  
• Differentiate between regular and irregular past tense verb forms (e.g., played vs ate).  

Skill building:

• Charades: past tense edition helps students verbally guess past tense verbs ("You danced!").  
  
• Peer interaction and group problem-solving. 
• By story time activity students collectively identify the past tense verbs.