First Grade - ELA
1: Environment
Unit 1: Habitats and Homes
Lesson 4
Animals Live and Grow
Students answer comprehension questions that require use or recognition of past tense (e.g., QUESTION #2: "What did the people have to wait for..." with the answer "They had to wait..."). The lesson text contains explicit present-tense statements about plants ("plants make their own food") and an explicit future-tense example in the answer to Question #2 ("The seeds will grow best in the spring"). Students also speak or write responses to reading questions describing events that occurred in the story (past), what is true now (present), and what will happen (future).
Lesson 6
Exploring Animal Habitats
Students are asked to describe animal actions during the observation (e.g., the prompts "What are they doing?" and "How do the animals move?") which requires using action verbs. The skills list explicitly includes "Use words that name, describe, and tell action," and Activity 2 asks students to dictate a narrative using sentence frames such as "I am a ______. I live in the ______. One day I ______," which prompts use of verbs. The wrapping-up role-play extension asks students to act out and guess actions (e.g., drinking, flying), encouraging use of verbs in speech.
Lesson 8
Animal Care
Students answer comprehension questions that require past-tense responses (e.g., "Where did he find it?") and conditional/future reasoning (e.g., "Would you keep it?"; "Do you think the salamander would rather live...?"). Students describe and practice caregiving actions (feeding, brushing, walking, giving a bath), which invites use of present or past verb forms when talking about what they do or did. The lesson asks hypothetical and future-oriented questions (e.g., "What would happen if we didn't provide a healthy environment for our pets?" and asking what environment they would need if they kept a pet).
Lesson 9
Animal Designs
Students read and hear present-tense action captions such as "A fish swims in the ocean," "A parrot flies in the rainforest," and similar present-tense verbs on the activity pages. Students are asked to name animals and habitats and to say sentences aloud (for example, "A zebra can't live in the ocean. A zebra lives in the savanna."), which has them produce present-tense verb forms. Students tell and have recorded a creative story about an animal ending up in the wrong habitat, describing how it gets there, what happens, and how it returns, providing an opportunity to use verbs when sequencing events.
Lesson 10
Amazing Animals
Students read and hear verbs in the present tense during role-play and narration (e.g., "I am a little starfish," "I am pulling," "I can move so fast," "I see a large bird"). Students encounter past-tense verbs in scenarios (e.g., "My arm fell off," "If this shark lost four teeth…") and future-tense constructions in questions and prompts (e.g., "What will I do now?," "how many teeth will he have when they grow back?"). Students also encounter mixed-tense descriptions in informational text about animals changing over time (e.g., descriptions of shedding, growing back, and seasonal hair changes).
Final Project
Animal Research / My Environment
Students complete pages titled "What I Eat and Drink" and "Things I Do in My Environment," which prompt them to describe current habits and activities and therefore encourage use of present-tense verbs. In the Animal Research option, students fill prompts such as "The ____ is found in ____" and "What ____ Eats and Drinks," which model and require present-tense verb usage. Students also explain each page aloud and may sing or act out pages, providing opportunities to produce present-tense action words.
Unit 2: Weather
Lesson 1
Reading the Skies
Activity 3 asks students to tell or dictate a story that can be about something they have done in the past or a made-up story, giving students an occasion to use past-tense verbs. Activity 4 has students record daily weather on a calendar, which requires describing current sky conditions and temperatures (present-tense use). Activities 1 and 2 ask students to dictate sentences using vocabulary and include making predictions about a story, providing opportunities to produce sentences that could express present and future actions.
Lesson 6
Winter
Students are asked to dictate a story about something they like to do in the winter, and the prompt explicitly allows the story to be something they have done in the past or something they would like to do in the upcoming winter, which invites use of past and future verb forms. The activity page prompt "In the winter I _______" asks students to write a sentence about winter, which prompts use of present-tense verbs. Students are encouraged to attempt to write their own words and to read the story aloud, providing opportunities to produce and practice verb forms in context.
Lesson 7
Spring
Students read poems and short texts that contain verbs in different time frames (e.g., past: "I found an egg," "I picked it up," "It creaked and cracked"; present: "Flowers sprouting...", "Spring follows winter", "they need dirt, water, and sunlight"). Students are asked to read aloud poems and may write or dictate their own spring poem in the Language Arts extension, providing opportunities to produce verb forms in context.
Lesson 8
Summer
Students read and fill in a short story that contains multiple past-tense verbs (e.g., "went," "liked," "had," "dove," "cooled") and they read the completed passage aloud. Students answer spoken questions using present-tense verbs (e.g., "enjoys") when describing summer activities and sing a song that uses present-tense statements (e.g., "Spring is warm, and summer's hot"). The story also includes a future-oriented sentence ("Jessie hopes she can go to the beach again next summer") that students read or hear.
Final Project
Weather Games
Students are asked to observe and describe current weather (e.g., answer "What does the sky look like?" and "What is the temperature?") and to give a three-morning weather forecast reporting conditions to the family. The lesson asks students to look up whether afternoon or evening weather will differ and to prepare spoken forecasts; the example forecast uses present and future verb forms (e.g., "Today is going to be a beautiful day," "it is still a cool 54 degrees," "Today would be a great day…"). Students practice making oral presentations of their forecasts to the family and may rehearse and revise those spoken reports.
Unit 3: Community
Lesson 1
On the Town
Students are asked to "use words that name and words that tell action" and to use vocabulary in speech and writing, which targets verbs. In Activity 2 students fill in sentences such as "We ate dinner at the ________," "Today I got a book from the ________," and "I played with my friend at the ________," giving repeated practice with verb-containing sentences. Activity 3 has students write or dictate a sentence about Charlie visiting a place, requiring sentence construction that can include verbs. Activity 4 has students copy sentences containing target words, reinforcing use of words in sentences.
Lesson 2
My Community Environment
Students are asked to label places on a poster and "write or dictate a brief description of how the place serves the community," which requires using verbs to describe actions (Activity 2). Activity 4 has students interview workers and answer questions such as "What are the people doing that work here?" and then discuss the responses after the visit, prompting students to describe actions they observed. Day 2 asks students to "describe some of the communities found in the illustrations," encouraging narration of events or activities in the books.
Lesson 3
Jobs in the Community
Students are asked in Activity 5 to record one simple sentence about how each worker helps the community, which requires using present-tense verbs (e.g., "helps"). Activity 3 asks students to observe a worker and then "describe what he saw," which prompts use of past-tense verbs. Activity 4 (When I Grow Up) has sentence prompts and an example paragraph using future-oriented verbs and modals (e.g., "When I grow up I could be...", "I would like...", "people would need me"), asking students to write and speak about future plans.
Lesson 7
A Citizen with Character
Students read and respond to texts and questions that use past-tense verbs (e.g., the dialogue "Did you eat one of the cookies?" and "I didn't") and reflect on completed actions. Students answer teacher prompts about whether they finished jobs and whether they did them well, requiring them to think about past actions. Students retell or write beginning/middle/end sentences for "The Boy Who Cried Wolf," which requires describing story events (typically in past tense).
Lesson 9
Caring for Our Communities
Students read the story "When One Person Cares," which contains verbs in present (e.g., "Katy lives," "She likes"), past (e.g., "she and her mom plant every last seed" used in narrative context and verbs like "waited," "saw" appear), and progressive forms (e.g., "has been thinking," "is going to plant"). Students also sing or hear the Helping Song that uses present ("is what we do") and future ("we'll help you") verb forms. Students answer comprehension questions about story events (beginning, middle, end) that require them to refer to actions described in the text.
Final Project
I Can Make A Difference
Students complete planning sentence starters that require present-tense verb use ("I am planning to __"). Students complete step sentences that require future-tense verbs ("The first thing I will do is __," "Next I will __," "Finally I will __"). Students complete reflection sentence starters that require past-tense verb use ("I helped __ with __") and write about their completed project using past, present, and future language.
2: Similarities and Differences
Unit 1: Amazing Attributes
Lesson 4
How Does It Feel?
Students read and hear sentences that use present-tense verbs (students are asked to write or copy the sentence "______ feels _________," which uses the present-tense verb feels). Students also encounter past-tense verbs in example sentences ("We jumped in the lake" and "got wet"), which expose them to past tense forms in context.
Lesson 5
How Old?
Students read and write questions such as "Can you ride a bicycle?" and "Did you learn to ride a horse?", which use present and past verb forms. Students hear and repeat sentences like "she has been alive for three years" and "every year on her birthday, she gets a year older," providing models of present and present perfect verb use. Students are asked to write questions for pictured people and to record sentences, giving them opportunities to produce verb-based sentences and questions.
Unit 2: Senses
Lesson 1
My Five Senses
Students are asked to dictate four complete sentences describing a sensing experience and to discuss the person/place/thing and the action in each sentence (Activity 3, Option 2). The lesson explicitly directs discussion of what makes a complete sentence and identifies verbs as actions, with optional use of the terms "noun" and "verb." Students are asked to write or copy a sentence about a sense (Activity 4) and are given the example sentence "I smell with my nose," which contains a present-tense verb.
Lesson 2
Senses and Body Parts
Students listen to and interact with a narrated story, "Jackie's Day at the Pet Store," that uses past-tense verbs (e.g., went, opened, saw, heard, reached, touched, licked). During Option 1, students pick up and glue sense-organ cutouts when they hear Jackie use a sense, so they respond to verbs in the story as actions. In Option 2, students are asked to make up and tell a story aloud about Jackie and pause to glue sense organs as she uses senses, providing an opportunity to produce verbs while narrating.
Lesson 4
Hearing and Seeing
Students are asked to describe what it was like to walk blindfolded and then to describe how the experience differed when not blindfolded (Activity 4), and these descriptions are recorded and read aloud. During the Listening Walk (Activity 7) students describe sounds and sights and compare lists of observations. Activity 8 asks students to write each word in a sentence, which requires producing verbs within written sentences about eyes and ears.
Lesson 6
Experimenting With Our Senses
Activity 3 asks the child to tell a story about a time he ate or drank something that was his favorite flavor and to read the recorded story aloud, which requires describing past actions. Activity 4 directs the child to write or dictate and copy a sentence about something he smelled or tasted today, which prompts use of verbs to describe present or recent actions. Both activities require students to produce verb forms while speaking and writing.
Lesson 8
Writing About Our Senses
Students are prompted in Activity 2 to complete sentences such as "My popcorn felt ______ before it popped. After it popped it felt ______," which uses past-tense framing (popped, felt). Students are asked in Activity 3 to recall an event they did today or yesterday and the provided example responses use past-tense verbs (e.g., "The leaves sounded crunchy," "The leaves smelled like the earth"). Activity 4 asks students to write or copy a sentence describing the popcorn, which may require using verbs in a sentence context.
Final Project
A Sensible Party
Students plan the party and write invitations that include a place, date, and time, which involves expressing future arrangements (e.g., choosing a date and time and inviting guests). Students prepare for Party Day and perform actions described in the present (e.g., "Today is the day" and setting the table) and later answer wrap-up questions that ask about past events (e.g., "Did the party go well?"), so they use verbs in contexts that reflect present and past actions.
Unit 3: We're the Same, We're Different
Lesson 1
You're Special
Students are asked to fill in "You were born in the year ___," which elicits a past-tense response. Option 2 gives an example sentence students might write: "I am six years old," which uses present-tense verb 'am.' Questions such as "What is something you look forward to doing some day?" and "What do you want to be when you grow up?" prompt students to produce responses about the future.
Lesson 2
Physical Characteristics
Students write a handwriting sentence that begins "I have ______," which requires using the present-tense verb have. Students retell the "Different Friends" story and answer questions about what happened at the beginning, middle, and end, and they cut and sequence event boxes to order story events. Students dictate and compose their own "Friendship Story" with a beginning, middle, and end, producing sentences that describe events in a narrative.
Lesson 6
Different Families
Students are asked orally to name family members and to answer questions such as "What are your responsibilities in your family?" and "What activities do you do with your family?" which prompt use of present-tense verbs. Option 1 provides sentence stems ("My family is similar to a family from _______ because we both _______.") that require students to write or say comparisons, typically using present-tense verbs. Option 2's Venn diagram and the skills list (e.g., "Complete sentences," "Dictate ideas and responses," "Attempt to write words and sentences") give students opportunities to produce sentences about families and activities.
Lesson 8
Different Holidays and Traditions
Students are asked to write three sentences about their favorite holiday (Activity 3), with prompts to explain what they enjoy about the holiday, which encourages composing sentences such as "On _____ (holiday) we celebrate by _____." Activity 5 requires students to write a sentence about each holiday and provides example sentences in the present tense (e.g., "_____ (holiday) is important because _____"). The activities also prompt students to discuss why their family celebrates (or does not celebrate) each holiday, which elicits spoken or written present-tense verbs.
Final Project
Differences Make the World Go 'Round
Students are prompted to write sentences such as "I live in...", "I like to eat...", "My hobby is...", "I get to the store by...", "I wear...", and "I celebrate...", which require them to use present-tense verbs to describe themselves and a child from another country. The project asks students to complete and illustrate sentence frames comparing themselves and another child, encouraging them to compose whole sentences (e.g., Location, Food, Hobbies, Homes, Clothing, Transportation, Holidays).
3: Patterns
Unit 2: Patterns in Sounds, Words, and Actions
Lesson 2
Making Word Patterns
Students read and complete sentences such as "The frog stood on the ___," "The cat put on a ___," "The hen wrote with a ___," and "The fox got in the ___." Students write or copy sentences (Activity 4) that could include verbs and may encounter verbs when identifying words in rhyming books (Activity 3). These examples show students working with sentences that contain past-tense verbs.
Lesson 3
Poetry Patterns
Students read and sing poems and the song "A-Hunting We Will Go," which contain verbs such as "a-hunting we will go," "we'll find," and "put it in a box." Students are asked to write another verse and to write lines on handwriting paper using the template "We'll find a ____ put it ______ and then we'll let it go," providing practice producing future-tense verb forms. Students also complete fill-in-the-blank pages and rhyme-identification tasks that require writing or saying the verbs found in the poems and song.
Lesson 7
Making Sound and Action Patterns
Students are asked to write or copy a sentence that describes a pattern "she made today," which requires expressing an action in time. Students are asked to perform and demonstrate patterns (e.g., clap, stomp, slap) and to repeat segments, which involves using action verbs in present-tense descriptions. Activities ask students to take turns forming and repeating action patterns, prompting students to say or show actions (present) and to recount actions they completed (past).
Unit 3: Patterns in Your World
Lesson 1
Patterns in Nature
The guidance asks the child questions that reference different times, such as "Were there any patterns that you had seen before?" and prompts like "Can you think of any other patterns…" which invite past and present answers. The introduction uses future phrasing ("over the next couple of weeks, she will discover all kinds of patterns"), and Activity 4 asks the child to write or copy a sentence from the reading, which may contain verb forms. Parents are instructed to ask the child to explain patterns she has seen, which can elicit use of past or present verbs in responses.
Lesson 2
Patterns of Growth
Students are asked to draw a plant every few days and "write a sentence to record its growth," and to "write a sentence that describes each picture and how the plant is changing," providing opportunities to produce sentences about changes over time. Students sequence events by cutting and ordering pictures of plant, animal, and human life cycles and organize personal photos from youngest to oldest, which requires describing past-to-present sequences. Students are asked to write words and copy vocabulary, and to write labels and sentences on activity pages, giving repeated opportunities to write about growth stages.
Lesson 4
Daily Routines
Students label and sequence actions using verb phrases such as "get dressed," "get out of bed," "eat breakfast," "put on shoes," and "brush teeth" in Activity 1. In Activity 2 students dictate or write sentences for each step (example sentences: "Set the table," "Put food on the table," "Sit in my chair," "Serve my plate and eat"), so they produce verb-based sentences describing routines. In Activity 3 students record activities with times using verb phrases (e.g., "Wake up and get ready," "School begins," "Lunch," "Story and bedtime"), and Activity 4 asks students to write or copy a sentence describing a routine.
4: Change
Unit 1: Changes on Planet Earth
Lesson 1
What Causes Change?
The Skills list explicitly includes "Use naming words and action words (LA)," which directs students to work with verbs. In Activity 3 students complete scaffolded sentences such as "Once I saw __________ change," "__________ changed because __________," and "The change happened over a __________ amount of time," prompting students to produce past-tense verb forms. Activity 2 asks students to judge whether changes "happened quickly" or "happened slowly," encouraging students to describe observed changes using past-tense language.
Lesson 4
Changes in the Environment
Students read and hear situational prompts that contain verb forms in present and past (e.g., "You are playing...", "You were supposed to go to your friend's house") and descriptive paragraphs that use present-tense verbs to describe seasonal changes. Students are asked to illustrate or write two sentences about a time when weather caused them to change an activity, which encourages producing sentences that may be in the past tense. Students are also asked to write or copy a sentence about their favorite season, providing an opportunity to produce verb(s) in context.
Lesson 11
People Change the Environment
Students are asked to "describe what is happening in each illustration" (Activity 3) which prompts them to use action verbs (e.g., a person riding a bicycle; children planting a tree). The lesson text contains multiple present-tense and present-progressive verb forms that students hear or read (e.g., "Reducing means...", "we waste a lot", "we are putting stricter laws", "we are driving electric cars"). The recycle sorting activity requires students to name and sort items, which can elicit present-tense verb phrases (e.g., "This goes in the recycle bin").
Unit 2: Characters Change
Lesson 1
What's in a Name
Students read and respond to phrases from the story that include different verb forms (e.g., "Chrysanthemum wore her sunniest dress," "She ran all the way," "School is no place for me") and are asked to interpret those phrases. On the "Characters Change" page, students write short sentences comparing how Chrysanthemum was at the beginning and how she is at the end (prompts use 'was' and 'is'), prompting students to produce sentences that reflect different times. The Feeling Phrases activity has students locate phrases in context and describe what those phrases communicate about the character, which requires noticing verb usage in context.
Lesson 2
Why Worry?
Students are prompted to write about Wemberly at different times using sentence stems such as "At the beginning of the story Wemberly was..." and the prompt "Before Wemberly was ____, but now she is ____," which model past and present states. The Characters Change activity asks students to describe how Wemberly changed from beginning to end and to write descriptions in the past and present sections, providing opportunities to use past-tense and present-tense verbs.
Lesson 4
Comparing Characters
Students dictate three-sentence story summaries (beginning, middle, end) and are given an exemplar summary that uses past and present verbs (e.g., "Chrysanthemum was..." and "decides she loves..."). In the Cause and Effect activity students match sentences that are written in past tense (e.g., "The kids made fun of Chrysanthemum's name" → "She began to hate her name") and are asked to write their own cause-and-effect example. The I Change page directs students to "Write 3 complete sentences" describing who they were before and after a problem, prompting students to produce sentences that contrast past and present states.
Lesson 6
Positive and Negative Change
Students are asked to write or dictate sentences describing a change and are given model sentences that use past-tense verbs (e.g., "I felt like the world was crashing in around me," "I cried so hard that my tears ran dry," "I jumped with joy!"). The student activity pages contain cause-and-effect phrases written in present tense (e.g., "you push your sister," "she falls down," "you make cookies," "you get to eat them"), which expose students to present-tense verb forms.
Unit 3: A First Look at History - Change Over Time
Lesson 1
People and Families Change
Students are prompted to write or dictate sentences about past and present changes (Activity 3 and the "Writing About Change" page) using prompts such as "My family used to look very different" and "Now my family is ___." Activity 6 asks students to predict future family states and record how old each family member will be, encouraging use of future verbs (e.g., "will be"). The skills list also asks students to "Use words that name and words that tell action (LA)," which supports using verbs to describe time.
Lesson 2
Understanding Time
Students are prompted to complete three sentence frames labeled "Yesterday I", "Today I", and "Tomorrow I will" and to write or draw about actions in each time frame. The introduction asks students to talk about things that happened yesterday, things happening now, and things that will happen tomorrow, prompting oral use of verbs in past, present, and future contexts. Activity 2 includes targeted questions (e.g., "Were you born in the past, present, or future?", "Tell me about a change that is happening in your life at the present.") that require students to use verbs to describe events in different times.
Lesson 4
Past and Present
Students are asked to tell a story about an adventure they had living in the past and dictate it while the adult records it (Activity 3), which requires describing past events. Students are asked to write a sentence that describes how life in the past was different than it is today (Activity 8), prompting contrast of past and present. Students complete "How Am I Different?" with a box for a past self and a box for a future self (Me from Year 20__), providing an opportunity to represent past, present, and future time frames.
Lesson 5
Exploring the Past
Students are asked to write or dictate descriptions about elements of culture (Activity 1) and to write one sentence about each element of a selected historical culture to assemble into a book (Activity 4). Students put pictures in chronological order on a timeline (Activity 2), which reinforces talking or writing about earlier versus later times. The student pages provide spaces for written sentences about Homes and Houses, Clothes and Fashion, Food and Eating, and Travel and Transport, which require composing statements about people and practices in past cultures.
Lesson 6
Predicting Future Change
Students are asked to predict future outcomes with prompts such as "How will this change your family?", which invites use of future-tense verbs (e.g., will). Several scenarios use past and present language (e.g., "You used to be good at brushing your teeth, but now you forget..." and the fill-in prompt "One way I have changed is ___"), which provides opportunities for students to write about past and present changes. Activities require students to write or dictate sentences about changes (Activity 2, Activity 3, Activity 4), giving practice producing verb forms in context.
Lesson 7
People of the Past
Students are asked whether a biographical subject "lived in the past or is . . . living in the present" and to explain how they know, which requires distinguishing past and present time references. The "People in History" activity provides dated descriptions (e.g., 1787, 1879) and short descriptions written in past tense (e.g., "made the light bulb," "encouraged"), which students read and sort chronologically. Students are prompted to write a sentence about a historical person on handwriting paper, giving an opportunity to produce a verb form about past events.
Final Project
My Past, Present and Future
Students complete multiple activity pages with sentence frames that require past, present, and future verb forms (e.g., "I was different because," "Now I am," "In the future I will be"). Other prompts explicitly ask students to write "In the past __________" and "Today __________" and to fill in "In the past I did," "Now," and "In the future I will," prompting use of verbs across time. The comparison activity asks students to write or dictate sentences describing elements "In the past" and "Today," giving repeated opportunities to produce verbs that convey time.
6: Reading
Unit 1: Semester 1
Lesson 3
Letter Sounds Review III
The Weekly Message includes the future-tense phrase "you will learn," exposing students to a future verb form. The What's Missing answer key and reading activities contain sentences such as "The pig has a jug." (present) and "The cat and the dog ran." (past), which students read and write. Multiple activities ask students to read, write, and complete sentences that include verbs in different tenses (e.g., reading readers, filling blanks, and writing words under pictures).
Lesson 4
Letter Sounds Review IV
Students read and circle sentences that include past-tense verbs such as 'was' in sentences like "The fat cat was hot" and "That was him in the bed." Students use Making Sentences cards that include verb forms (ran, run, is, has, was) and create sentences such as "the cat ran to a _____." Students read and write words and sentences that require recognizing and using past and present verb forms during reading, building, and writing activities.
Lesson 5
Adding s, More Word Families, Ending with ck
The sentence dictation activity has students write the sentences "The hens are in the pot." and "A tub was on the dock.," so students read and write a present-tense verb (are) and a past-tense verb (was). Sight word practice explicitly introduces and has students read the word "are," and the reader title Ducks Are Fun includes the present-tense verb form "are." The reader activity also prompts students to consider sentences using present progressive (e.g., "is having") when answering comprehension questions.
Lesson 6
Open Syllables and Digraph th
Students read and write complete sentences that include past-tense verbs (e.g., "We sat on the log.", "The man ran with his pet.", "The path was wet and hot.") and present-tense verbs (e.g., "The cats are on the path.", "We are with them."). Students build, read, and write words and sentences during Forming Sentences and Sentence Dictation activities, encountering verbs in context. Students also read the reader and dictated sentences aloud, which requires recognizing and producing these verb forms in speech and writing.
Lesson 9
Blends with l
Activity 1.3 presents the sight-word pair "have" and "had," explains that "have" is used for present time and "had" for past time, and asks the child to make sentences using each. Wrapping Up asks the child to explain the difference between "have" and "had" and to use words like "today" and "yesterday" when making sentences. Sentence dictation and Making Sentences activities require students to read and write sentences that use present-tense verbs (e.g., "He has...", "The ducks fly...") and include at least one past-tense word card ("sat").
Lesson 11
Ending Blends
Students read and write sentences that contain verbs in different time frames (e.g., dictated sentences include "The champ ran fast on the track." and "The elf sat on the shelf." with past-tense verbs, and "I have lots of words." with a present-tense verb). The Weekly Message contains a future-tense phrase ("This week, you will learn...") that students are asked to read along with. Word chains and reading tasks include both present and past verb forms (examples include the words "run" and "ran") that students spell, read, or write.
Lesson 12
Double ll, ss, ff, zz (FLOSS)
Students compare the verbs "are" and "were" and hear example sentences that contrast past and present ("Yesterday, we were planning..." vs "Today, we are planning...") in Activity 1.3. Students read and write sentences that use present-tense verbs (e.g., "The bugs buzz."; dictation sentences: "The kids shop at the mall.", "Meg has less cash than Jill."). The weekly and introductory text contains future-tense phrasing (e.g., "This week, your child will learn..."), providing an example of a future verb form.
Lesson 13
Glued Sounds ng and nk
Students read and write dictated sentences that contain present and past verb forms (e.g., "The ring is on her hand." uses present "is"; "Hank drank from the well." and "The cats sang a long song." use past tense verbs "drank" and "sang"). In Making Sentences and sentence-dictation activities, students select and arrange word cards (including verbs such as had, were, sink, yell, clap) to create and write sentences. Activities require students to read, write, and speak sentences aloud, giving repeated exposure to verb usage in context.
Lesson 14
Three-Letter Beginning Blends
Students are asked to spell and read verb forms that show different time (e.g., spring, sprang, sprung are listed for spelling practice). Sentence dictation requires students to write present-tense sentences such as "The shrimp swim in the tank." The Life Application and example sentences include a past-tense verb (e.g., "The shrimp shrank in the shrub.").
Lesson 15
More Ending Blends
Students read and write sentences that use past and present verb forms (e.g., they write "An elk slept on the bed." and "Each kid can swim." during sentence dictation). Students change base forms to past forms in word-building activities (e.g., changing "let" to "left," "wet" to "wept") and practice reading and spelling past-tense word forms such as left, wept, slept, kept. Students also read and discuss present-tense verbs in context (e.g., "The rafts drift on the pond.", and practice present ability with "can swim").
Lesson 17
Semester Review
Students write and read dictated sentences that include past and present verbs (e.g., The dogs slept in the yard. — past; They drink milk in a glass. — present). Students read the Weekly Message, which contains verb forms showing past/perfect ("You have learned...") and a future construction ("you are going to review"). Students also read and underline sentences on activity pages that use present-tense verbs (e.g., "There is my friend's house.").
Unit 2: Semester 2
Lesson 1
Long Vowels a and i with Silent e
Students read and practice the sight word "will" (it appears in the Weekly Message and is listed among new sight words). Students read and write the sentence "Will you bake a cake?", which requires recognizing the future auxiliary "will." Students are asked to compare "I like the red shirt." and "She likes the red shirt." and to add an -s to form "likes," giving practice with a present-tense verb form.
Lesson 5
Long a Spellings ai, ay
Students read and write sentences that include verbs in present and future forms (e.g., Sentence Dictation: "The train is on the track." and the Fill-in-the-Blanks sentence: "Dad will spray us with a hose."). Students complete fill-in-the-blank sentences that require choosing verbs that fit sentences (e.g., "The dogs stay in the yard.", "We may get to hike at the lake."). Students read and reread weekly messages and story text that contain verbs used in context (present tense and modal/future constructions).
Lesson 7
Long i Spellings y, igh, ie
Students read and write sentences that contain verbs in different times (e.g., students write "The kite is high." and "The kite was high in the sky." during dictation and fill-in activities). Students spell and read past-formed words such as tied, cried, tried, fried, and dried during Day 4 activities. Students also encounter modal verbs that imply future/possibility (e.g., "We might go swim in the lake." and "We could eat pie.") while completing fill-in and writing tasks.
Lesson 9
Long u Spellings ue, ew, ou
Students read and re-read sentences and short texts that include verbs in different time frames (for example, the Weekly Message contains "Soon, you will know..." showing future tense, and the sight-word practice includes "Who has been to camp?" showing a past/perfect form). Students also read and write dictated sentences such as "The goat can chew." and "Who has a clue?", engaging with present-tense verb forms in reading and writing activities. Students encounter and read story sentences in the reader and activity pages that use verbs in present and past contexts.
Lesson 12
Other Vowel Sounds oi, oy
Students read and write the sight word "did" across activities and include it on the spelling test and in sight-word practice. Students produce and read present-tense verbs in sentence dictation and sentence-making activities (e.g., "The boys play with the toy," "Use your voice," "The boy has a toy that brings him joy"). Students make and read sentences using verb-containing word cards (e.g., join, spoil, boil) during word-building and sentence-construction tasks.
Lesson 14
Other Vowel Sounds aw, au
The lesson explicitly identifies "made" as the past-tense form of "make" and explains: "When we use 'make,' we're talking about something that's happening now. 'Made' is about something that's already happened." It gives paired example sentences: "They make a cake today." and "They made a cake yesterday." Students also write dictated sentences that use present-tense verbs (e.g., "The kids draw." "They haul rocks.").
Lesson 15
These Make More Than One Sound: oo and ea
Students write and read dictated sentences that include a past-tense verb ("She took the hat off the hook.") and a present-tense verb ("The bread is good."). Students also encounter and read questions using present-tense verbs (e.g., "When is the fall?") during the Question Words activity.
Lesson 16
Silent Starts: kn, wr, gn
Students write dictated sentences that contain present-tense verbs (e.g., "They wrap many gifts." and "The knife is sharp.") and read aloud sentences and sight words that use present-tense verbs. Students are asked to answer comprehension questions about The Gnats (e.g., "What do the gnats do…?"), prompting them to describe actions, typically in the present tense. Students are asked to list things they "have learned," which may prompt use of past-tense language when describing prior learning.