How to Teach Verbs to Kindergartners

You ask your class to think of an action word and a child says "pizza."

You ask again. Another child says "happy."

A third child says "running!" and jumps out of their seat to demonstrate.

That's your entry point. Go with the child who jumped.

Teaching verbs to kindergartners works best when it starts with their bodies. Verbs are action words, and five-year-olds have more action in them than any grammar worksheet can contain. The trick is channeling all that movement into instruction, so that by the time they're sitting down to write sentences, the concept is already in their muscles.

Table of Contents

1. Why Movement Is the Best Verb Teacher
2. Introducing Action Verbs
3. Linking Verbs: Is, Am, Are
4. Past vs. Present Tense (A Gentle Introduction)
5. Verb Charades and Performance Activities
6. Building Sentences With Verbs
7. Verbs in Read-Alouds
8. Sorting Activities for Verbs
9. Independent Practice That Builds Verb Skills
10. Building Toward First Grade Grammar

Why Movement Is the Best Verb Teacher

There's a reason the classic verb definition is "an action word."

Action is physical. And kindergartners are physical. When you teach a child that "jump" is a verb, and then have them jump, you've connected the abstract concept to a concrete, felt experience. Their body knows that jump is a doing word. That knowledge lives somewhere deeper than a worksheet.

This is why verb instruction in kindergarten should involve a lot of standing up, moving around, and acting things out. Not as a reward or a break. As the actual instruction.

Save the sitting for when the concept is already solid.

Introducing Action Verbs

Action verbs are the most intuitive starting point because they're visual. You can do them, see them, and demonstrate them instantly.

Start by explaining: "A verb is a word that shows what someone or something does."

Then prove it. Stand up. Jump. "Jumped. That's a verb." Sit down. Clap. "Clap. That's a verb." Spin. "Spin. That's a verb." Now the whole class is trying it.

From there, build a list together.

Action verb introduction activities:

• Verb brainstorm storm. Go around the circle: every child names one thing their body can do. Record all of them. By the time you're done, you have a class list of 20+ action verbs.
• Verb-a-day. Each morning, write one verb on the board. Everyone acts it out. Use it in a sentence. By Friday: five verbs, five movements.
• Verb sort from pictures. Give children magazine pictures. "Is someone doing something in this picture? What are they doing? That's a verb." Collect verbs from the images.
• Verb chain. One child says a verb and does the action. Next child copies the action AND adds their own. Keep going until the chain breaks or gets gloriously silly.
• Verb vs. noun. Call out a word. Kids hold up a green card for verbs, red card for nouns (or thumbs up/down). "Dog!" Noun. "Run!" Verb. "Apple!" Noun. "Sleep!" Verb.

Linking Verbs: Is, Am, Are

This is where verb instruction gets a little harder, and I want to be straightforward about that.

Linking verbs like "is," "am," and "are" don't show action. They connect the subject to a description. "She is tall." "I am happy." "They are friends." There's nothing to act out here, which makes them trickier for kinesthetic learners.

Most kindergarten programs introduce is/am/are as "helping verbs" or "special verbs" rather than diving into the full linking verb concept. That framing works well.

Is/am/are activities:

• Sentence frame practice. "I am ___." Each child fills in the blank with something true about themselves. "I am fast." "I am funny." "I am five." The pattern builds automaticity.
• Morning greeting sentence. Change the daily greeting to include a linking verb. "Today is ___." "We are ___." Kids read it with you and identify the verb.
• Is/am/are sorting. Incomplete sentences on cards: "She ___ a teacher." "I ___ hungry." "They ___ at the park." Which word completes each sentence? Sort the cards.
• Photo captions. Show a photo of children playing. Kids dictate a sentence using is/am/are. "They are playing." "She is smiling." Write it together.
• Freeze and describe. Kids freeze in a pose. Teacher points to one child: "She is ___." Kids fill in the description. "She is standing on one foot." "She is making a funny face."

Past vs. Present Tense (A Gentle Introduction)

Tense is genuinely abstract, and you shouldn't expect mastery in kindergarten.

What you can do is build awareness. Help children feel the difference between "I jump" (happening now) and "I jumped" (it already happened). The -ed ending is the most reliable pattern and the right place to start.

Tense introduction activities:

• Now vs. then. Demonstrate an action. "Watch me clap." Clap. "I am clapping. That's present tense, happening now." Stop. "I clapped. That already happened. That's past tense."
• Before and after pictures. Two pictures side by side: a child about to eat a sandwich, and a child who has finished eating. "In this picture, she is eating. In this picture, she ate." Label together.
• Verb timeline. A simple three-point line: yesterday, today, tomorrow. Place verb cards: "played" goes near yesterday, "play" goes near today.
• -ed hunt. Give children a simple reader or decodable text. Find every word that ends in -ed. What does that ending tell us?
• Change the time. Sentence strip: "The dog runs." How do we change this to the past? "The dog ran." Some irregular verbs (run/ran, come/came) are great conversation starters.

Verb Charades and Performance Activities

Verb charades may be the single best kindergarten grammar activity that exists. It requires no materials, works for every ability level, and the whole class is engaged for every turn.

The rules are simple: one child draws a verb card (or you whisper a verb to them), they act it out without speaking, and the class guesses. When someone guesses correctly, everyone says: "Yes! ___ is a verb."

Variations on verb charades:

• Team charades. Split into two teams. One child from each team acts out the same verb simultaneously. First team to guess correctly wins the round.
• Verb tableaux. Small groups of 3-4 children create a frozen scene showing a verb. Class guesses the verb and uses it in a sentence.
• Animal verbs. The verb is an animal action: slither, gallop, pounce, waddle. Kids act it out, class guesses animal AND verb.
• Silent verb sentence. Two children act out a subject and a verb together. "Sofia" (points to self) + "jumps" (jumps). Class says the full sentence.
• Speed round. 30 seconds. Act out as many verbs as possible from a list. Great for high-energy transition times.

Building Sentences With Verbs

Here's the grammar goal that ties everything together: a sentence needs a subject (noun) and a verb.

Once children know both nouns and verbs, you can start building simple sentences together. This is where grammar becomes writing, and where abstract concepts become tools.

Sentence building activities:

• Noun plus verb equation. Write: NOUN + VERB = SENTENCE. Example: "Dog" + "runs" = "The dog runs." Build examples together on chart paper.
• Pocket chart sentences. Noun cards in one pocket, verb cards in another. Children mix and match to create sentences. Some will be silly: "The rock dances." Lean into it. Silly sentences prove the grammar rule too.
• Subject-verb chains. One child says a noun. The next child adds a verb. "Cat." "Cat jumps." "Cat jumps high." Keep going, adding one element per child.
• My sentence book. Each child makes a small booklet. Each page: a noun, a verb, and a drawing of the sentence. "The bird sings." Draw it.
• Fix the broken sentence. Write a sentence missing the verb. "The rabbit ." Kids supply the verb. Then write a sentence missing the noun. " runs fast." Kids supply the noun. This builds awareness of both parts.

Verbs in Read-Alouds

Picture books are full of beautiful, specific verbs that children don't usually encounter in conversation. "The leaves drifted." "The cat prowled." "She whispered."

Using read-alouds to explore verbs builds vocabulary alongside grammar awareness.

Read-aloud verb activities:

• Verb hunt during reading. As you read, pause at strong verbs. "She crept. What does creep mean? Can you show me with your body?"
• Better verb substitution. After reading, revisit a sentence. "The author wrote 'she walked.' Could we change 'walked' to a more interesting verb? She stomped? She tiptoed? She shuffled?"
• Verb tally. Pre-selected pages, children raise a hand each time they hear a verb. Count at the end.
• Act out the story. After reading, assign roles and have children act out the key verbs of the plot. Focus on what each character does, not what they say.
• Favorite verb share. After the read-aloud, each child shares their favorite verb from the book and demonstrates it.

Great books with strong action verbs for kindergarten: "Tops and Bottoms," "Swimmy," "Joseph Had a Little Overcoat," and anything with animals doing things. Mo Willems is again a verb goldmine. The Pigeon always wants, tries, begs, and refuses. 🎭

Sorting Activities for Verbs

Sorting helps children discriminate between verbs and other word types, which is the core skill underlying all grammar instruction.

Verb sort ideas:

• Action vs. linking verb sort. Run, jump, swim (action) vs. is, am, are (linking). Two columns on chart paper. Not all children will get linking verbs immediately, and that's fine.
• Present vs. past tense sort. Walk/walked, jump/jumped, eat/ate. Which happened now? Which already happened?
• Verb or noun. Mixed cards, sort into two groups. "Run" is a verb. "Runner" is a noun. "Jump" is a verb. "Jump rope" is a noun. (The same root word in two forms is a great conversation starter.)
• Fast vs. slow verbs. Crawl and creep are slow. Sprint and dash are fast. Sort by speed. This builds vocabulary depth alongside grammar.
• Feelings verbs. Smile, cry, shout, laugh, worry, celebrate. Sort into happy feelings and sad/scared feelings. Discuss how these verbs show emotions.

Independent Practice That Builds Verb Skills

Worksheets solidify what movement and discussion have already built. After children have physically acted out verbs, sorted them, and used them in spoken sentences, a written activity gives them a chance to demonstrate and consolidate that knowledge.

Our kindergarten verb worksheets cover identifying action verbs in sentences, completing sentences with verbs, sorting present and past tense, and building simple noun-verb sentences. They work best as center activities after direct instruction.

Tips:

• Pair worksheets with a verbal warm-up: act out three verbs before sitting down to write
• Use the sentence-building sheets after the pocket chart activity
• Have children share one sentence from their worksheet aloud before the lesson closes

Building Toward First Grade Grammar

Kindergarten verb instruction plants seeds that first grade will grow.

In first grade, children will learn more about tenses, irregular verbs, and subject-verb agreement. The more solid their foundation in what a verb is and does, the more smoothly that instruction will go.

Your kiddos already have the most important part down: they know that language has action in it, that words do things, and that a sentence needs both a doer and a doing. That's the whole grammar story in miniature, and you taught it through jumping, charades, and pocket charts.

Grab the full set of kindergarten verb worksheets to keep verb practice fresh throughout the year.

Keep Reading

• How to Teach Adjectives to Kindergartners: Activities, Tips, and What Actually Works
• How to Teach Grammar to Kindergartners: Skills, Activities, and What Actually Works
• How to Teach Nouns to Kindergartners

Frequently Asked Questions

At what point in kindergarten should I introduce verbs? Most programs introduce verbs after nouns, typically mid-year. Children need to understand nouns well enough to contrast them with verbs. That said, informal exposure to action words can begin from the very first week.

Should I teach tense in kindergarten? A gentle introduction to present and past tense is appropriate, particularly the -ed ending. Full tense mastery is a first grade goal. In kindergarten, building awareness is enough.

My students confuse adjectives and verbs. How do I address this? Return to the physical test: "Can you do it? Can you act it out? If yes, it's probably a verb. If it describes what something looks like or feels like but you can't really do it, it might be an adjective." Comparative examples help: fast (adjective) vs. run (verb).

Are "is," "am," and "are" really necessary for kindergartners? They're worth introducing because they appear in almost every sentence children read and write. Full understanding isn't expected, but exposure to the concept that not all verbs show physical action is a useful foundation for future grammar learning.