how to teach past present future grade 1

📚 Understanding Time: Past, Present, Future for Grade 1

This lesson plan provides a structured approach to teaching first graders about the concepts of past, present, and future tense. The goal is for students to understand how time works and how to describe actions that happened, are happening, or will happen.

🎯 Objectives

• 📅 To define and differentiate between past, present, and future.
• 🗣️ To use verbs correctly in past, present, and future tenses.
• ✍️ To write simple sentences using the correct tense.

🍎 Materials

• ⏱️ A large visual timeline.
• 🖼️ Pictures representing past, present, and future activities (e.g., a photo of a baby, a child playing now, a graduation picture).
• 📝 Worksheets with fill-in-the-blank exercises.
• 🖍️ Markers or crayons.
• 📖 Storybooks with clear examples of past, present, and future tenses.

☀️ Warm-up (5 minutes)

• 🗣️ Begin by asking students what they did yesterday (past), what they are doing now (present), and what they plan to do tomorrow (future).
• 🗓️ Write their responses on the board under the headings: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow.
• 🤝 Briefly discuss the differences between the three categories.

✏️ Main Instruction (25 minutes)

1. 🕰️ Introduce the Timeline

   • ⏳ Display the large visual timeline.
   • 📍 Explain that the timeline represents the flow of time, with the past on one end, the present in the middle, and the future on the other end.

2. 🙋‍♀️ Defining Past, Present, and Future

   • 🔙 Past: Explain that the past includes things that have already happened. Use examples like “Yesterday, I played in the park.”
   • 🎁 Present: Explain that the present is what is happening right now. Use examples like “Today, I am learning about time.”
   • 🚀 Future: Explain that the future is what will happen later. Use examples like “Tomorrow, I will go to the zoo.”

3. Verb Tense Examples

   • 🚶 Past: Show pictures of past activities and ask students to describe what happened. Use verbs in the past tense (e.g., played, walked, ate).
   • 🏃 Present: Show pictures of present activities and ask students to describe what is happening. Use verbs in the present tense (e.g., is playing, is walking, is eating).
   • ✈️ Future: Show pictures of future activities and ask students to predict what will happen. Use verbs in the future tense (e.g., will play, will walk, will eat).

4. ✍️ Sentence Construction

   • 📝 Write simple sentences on the board, leaving blanks for the verb.
   • 💡 Ask students to fill in the blanks with the correct form of the verb in past, present, or future tense.
   • 🎨 Encourage students to create their own sentences and share them with the class.

📝 Assessment (10 minutes)

• ✅ Distribute worksheets with fill-in-the-blank exercises focusing on past, present, and future verb tenses.
• 🖍️ Have students complete the worksheets independently.
• 🍎 Review the answers together as a class.

💡 Extension Activities

• 📖 Read aloud a storybook and have students identify verbs in past, present, and future tenses.
• 🎭 Act out different scenarios representing past, present, and future events.
• 🏡 Assign students to write about their past, present, and future in a short paragraph.