In English, we are close to completing our unit on verbs.  Study guides for this unit were handed out before break and are due on January 20th.  We'll take the test after packets are graded.  The hardest part so far seems to be knowing the difference between regular and irregular verbs.  We are bringing home a second practice sheet on this topic tonight. Rules for formatting a verb in the past tense are included below.

Earlier lessons focused on sentences and basic sentence structure. 
The four types of sentences are explained here.


Here are some tips on finding the parts of a sentence:

Grammar Checklist to find the basic sentence parts

Draw a line between the complete subject and complete predicate.

Cross out any articles (a, an, the).   Find and cross out any descriptive words. 

Sing the helping verb song:

Am, are, be, been, is, was, were,

have, has, had, do, does, did,

shall, will, should, would, may, might, must

can, could, being

 

Any word in this song is a helping or linking verb and considered part of the simple predicate. 

 

Now look for action words.  These often have a helping verb, but not always.  If you don’t find any words from the song, then the action verb is the simple predicate by itself.

 

Find the one word that you can hold or hug and this is likely the simple subject.  If you can’t hold our hug it, but you can think it (idea, thought) it might also be the simple subject.

 Often the presence of a prepositional phrase in a sentence confuses fifth graders and distracts them from the main sentence structure.  We work hard to identify prepositional phrases and cross them out before identifying the subject, verb, direct object, and indirect objects in our sentences. Below is a list of common prepositions for your use:

about	around	beside	for	near	outside	under
above	at	by	from	of	over	until
across	before	down	in	off	past	up
after	behind	during	inside	on	through	with
along	below	except	into	out	to	without

The noun or the pronoun that follows a preposition is the object of the preposition and part of the prepositional phrase. 

Please note the following examples:

with the blue cover                to me
from the ancient past             by people
for a special purpose              about them


Verbs

Rules for Forming the Present Tense

1. Most verbs: Add -s.	get--gets         play--plays
2. Verbs ending in s,ch,sh,x,and z:      Add -es.	pass--passes    punch--punches push--pushes    mix--mixes fizz--fizzes
3. Verbs ending with a consonant and y:      Change the y to i and add - es.	try--tries         empty--empties

Rules for Forming the Past Tense

1. Most verbs:  Add -ed.	play--played suggest--suggested
2. Verbs ending with e:      Drop the final e and add - ed.	believe--believed hope--hoped
3. Verbs ending with a consonant and y:      Change the y to i and add - ed.	study-studied hurry--hurried
4. One-syllable verbs ending with a single vowel and a         consonant:      Double the final consonant ad add - ed.	stop--stopped plan--planned

Rules for Forming the Future Tense

1. To form the future tense of a verb, us the helping verb will or shall with the main verb.  Shall is often used with I or we. 

Here is a link for Words to Use Instead of Said.