Past, present, future

It is Sentence Builder for older children. Each picture has a sign saying when it happens: every day, yesterday, now or tomorrow. Each team builds the sentence with coloured cards and has to choose the right verb out of plays, played, is playing or is going to play. The tense is chosen by looking at when it happens, as English schools teach it.

Years 1 and 2Years 3 and 4Years 5 and 6English
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English tenses game: a picture with a yesterday sign and coloured cards to build the sentence

What children practise

Levels and settings

Year 2

Present simple (with -s) and present continuous, without where; on hard, with where.

Year 3

Present with where, past, and on hard all four tenses.

Year 4

Past, the future with going to, and all four mixed.

Years 5 and 6

All four tenses mixed, with where and two extra cards; on hard, colours only or no hints.

How to play it in class

  1. Choose the year and difficulty, or in More options the tenses, whether where appears, the extra cards, the hints, the voice and the points.
  2. Press Start: each team sees the picture with its sign and the cards in its half.
  3. Tap the cards in order: orange, yellow, green, blue and brown. The extra cards are the same verb in other tenses.
  4. If a card does not fit, it shakes and that half pauses; after the third mistake the sentence is shown. The first team to reach the goal wins.

Ways to play

In teams, at the same time

The screen splits in two and each team plays on its own half at the same time.

For one player

One child plays on the whole screen at their own pace: on the whiteboard, a computer or a tablet.

Frequently asked questions

Which tenses are there?

Present simple, past simple (regular and irregular), present continuous and the future with going to.

Are there irregular verbs?

Yes: eat, drink, read, fly, sing, swim and run, with their past forms (ate, drank, read, flew, sang, swam, ran).

Is it free?

You can play 5 free games without signing up. After that, a one-off payment of €9.99 unlocks all 78 games for ever, on all your devices. There is no subscription.

Do I need to install anything?

No. It opens in the browser of the interactive whiteboard, panel, computer, tablet or iPad. Once loaded, it also works offline.

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Past, present, future

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