Grade 8 · English · Tenses
Past simple: write your weekend
A two-page worksheet, 10 irregular verbs and free writing
أ. مريم الهاشمي
مدرسة ب
The student writes their weekend first, fixes their own verbs second, and only meets the rule on the last page.
This page is exactly what a teacher's published work will look like. Only the teacher is not real yet.
What the student does
- 1
Write before reading any rule
Four sentences about Friday, with no verb table anywhere on the page yet.
- 2
Underline every verb they wrote
They go back over their own sentences, underline the verbs alone, and see how many are still in the present.
- 3
Check against ten verbs
A table on the second page with go / went, eat / ate and eight more.
- 4
Rewrite the first three
In the right form and in a second pen, so the first attempt stays visible beside it.
What's inside
- A table of ten irregular verbs students actually use
- Eight open lines for free writing
- A three-question checklist the student runs before handing it in
Outcomes
Writes four correct past simple sentences about something that happened to them.
Converts ten verbs from present to past, four of them irregular.
Finds the verb inside their own sentence, and judges its tense.
What the teacher focused on
Start with the rule and you get correct sentences nobody would ever say.
Teaching strategies
- Use before naming
- The student corrects their own text, not the book's
- The most common irregular verbs first
She moved the verb table to the second page instead of putting it at the top, because a visible table turns the sheet into copying rather than remembering. The page comes back correct and nothing of it survives to next week.
Questions from inside it
- 1Write four sentences about what you did on Friday. Start with: On Friday I …
- 2Fix this sentence: I go to my grandmother yesterday.
- 3Put the verbs in the past: We (eat) rice and my brother (drink) tea.
Curriculum
- Grade
- Grade 8
- Subject
- English
- Unit
- Tenses
- Taught in
- United Arab Emirates
Where this lesson sits in the curriculum
The same lesson appears in these countries' curricula. One page, five paths to it.
When to use it
The explanation
The past simple describes something that started and finished at a time we know. Most verbs take -ed. The verbs people use most in daily life have their own forms and are learnt one at a time: go becomes went, eat becomes ate. A word like yesterday or last night fixes the time, and the verb has to follow it.
Common mistakes it catches
The time landed in the word instead of the verb. Ask: where is the verb in your sentence? Then: did this happen yesterday, or every day? They get to went on their own.
After did, the verb goes back to its base form. The past is said once, inside did, and it is never said twice.
When a consonant comes before the y it turns into ied, so it is studied. Set it beside played, where the letter before the y is a vowel and the y stays.