Spot past continuous verbs.; Know when to use this tense.; Build sentences with 'was' or 'were' + -ing.; Describe past actions.

Past Continuous Tense

Past Continuous Tense

Learn about actions that were happening in the past!

Agenda

• Spot past continuous verbs.

• Know when to use this tense.

• Build sentences with 'was' or 'were' + -ing.

• Describe past actions.

What Were You Doing?

Look at this picture! What were these children doing yesterday afternoon? Think about their actions that were happening.

Children playing in the park yesterday afternoon.

Past Actions Pre-Test

• Yesterday, I (play/was playing) outside.

• Mom (cook/was cooking) dinner at 6 PM.

• They (watch/were watching) TV all morning.

• What (you do/were you doing) then?

Our Learning Goals

• Identify past continuous verbs (e.g., "was singing").

• Explain when we use past continuous actions.

• Form sentences using "was" or "were" + -ing.

• Describe what someone was doing in the past.

What Was Happening?

We use the past continuous tense to describe actions that were going on for a period of time in the past. For example, yesterday morning, Maya was drawing a beautiful picture. It tells us what someone was doing at a specific past moment.

Maya was drawing a beautiful picture yesterday morning.

When to Use It

• Action interrupted: I *was sleeping* when the dog barked.

• Two actions at once: She *was singing* while he *was dancing*.

• Something happening: They *were playing* when it started to rain.

• Parallel actions: Dad *was driving* while Mom *was talking*.

Was or Were?

We use 'was' when we talk about one person or thing, like 'I was playing' or 'He was singing'. We use 'were' when we talk about more than one person or thing, like 'They were running' or 'We were laughing'. Remember, 'you' always goes with 'were', even if it's just one person!

Boy drawing, using 'was' and 'were' in sentences.

Girls were jumping rope, enjoying playtime in the park.

Adding -ing to Verbs

To show an action that is happening, we add "-ing" to the end of a verb. This makes the action continuous, like something still going on. For example, the verb "play" becomes "playing," and "read" becomes "reading."

Boy joyfully building towers with blocks, showing continuous action.

Put It Together!

Now let's build super sentences! We take "was" or "were" and add a verb with "-ing" at the end. Look: "Leo was reading a book" tells us what Leo did for a while in the past.

Building compound sentences with "was/were" and "-ing" verbs.

Past Continuous Tense

Spot past continuous verbs.; Know when to use this tense.; Build sentences with 'was' or 'were' + -ing.; Describe past actions.

People who viewed this slide also liked...