Printable Past Tense Worksheets
Printable past tense worksheets for 1st through 5th grade, with an answer key on every sheet. The sets below cover 3 different skills, so you can start where your child actually is. Available as fill in the blank and sorting activities.
Targeted Practice by Skill
About Past Tense
What this skill is
Past tense verbs express actions that occurred in the past (completed time). Regular past tense verbs are formed by adding the -ed suffix to base verbs (walk -> walked). Solvers study regular past tense rules, -ed pronunciation variations (/t/, /d/, /id/), spelling change rules (doubling final consonants: hop -> hopped; changing -y to -i: carry -> carried), past time signaling, and verb tenses across narrative writing, journal entries, and spelling.
When children learn it
Basic -ed past tense addition (walked, played) begins in 1st grade and 2nd grade. In 3rd grade and 4th grade, students master past tense spelling change rules (doubling consonants, y-to-i shifts), -ed ending pronunciation variations, and maintaining consistent past tense narrative flow across writing workshops and editing practice.
Common Mistakes
- Misspelling regular past tense verbs by adding -ed without applying spelling rules (writing 'hopped' as 'hoped' or 'carried' as 'carryed').
- Over-applying -ed to irregular verbs (writing 'goed' instead of 'went' or 'runned' instead of 'ran').
- Shifting tenses unnaturally, mixing past tense and present tense verbs within the same narrative paragraph.