Projects that emphasize the identification of verbs teach students to distinguish the verb from other sentence parts. Verbs in their most basic form are action words (for example, "do," "make," "run," "see") or words that indicate a state of being (for example, "is," "becomes," "changes"). They are the core of properly built sentences. Recognizing a verb sometimes requires an assessment of what it is not. A verb is not a noun (persons, places, or things) or an adjective (descriptive word). A verb identification project for students involves labeling all the verbs in a series of sentences or a paragraph and explaining what factors identify them as verbs in comparison with the qualities listed above. A possible verb project involves a teacher giving a student a series of sentences or paragraphs with random words circled. The student then explains why each circled word is or is not a verb.
Verbs have a core element or root that is added to or modified depending on the following conditions: which person is being described (first person refers to "I," "we"; second person refers to "you," "you all"; third person refers to "he, she, it" and "they") and whether it is singular (performed by one person or thing) or plural (performed by multiple people or things). The verb "to work" is conjugated in the following manner: "I work," "you work," "he, she or it works," "we work" and "they work." A project can focus on highlighting these different conjugations by asking a student to provide the correct ending for the requested personal form. Such an project might involve a matching exercise where the student must pair verbs in one column with pronouns in the other. The use of self-made flashcards or websites for verb-practicing are also effective in this approach. The various forms of verbs are technically referred to as conjugations.
Tense refers to the time in which the action of the verb happened. Verb endings change with tenses, for example: "I work," "I worked," "I have worked," "I had worked," and so on. Irregular verbs change in other ways, usually with an interior vowel change, for example: "I swim," "I swam," "I had swum." One possible project to learn this aspect of verb conjugation is to make a chart of the tenses of the verb. Projects for matching and identifying described above also apply to tenses: match the correct form of the verb with its tense, or identify the tense based on when the action happened.
Educational exercises appeal to students more when they can directly relate to the activity they are learning. Verb projects that use this concept might involve writing a sentence, identifying the verbs in it and forming new sentences using the same verbs but with changes of personal form or tense. The student in most cases will have more interest simply because the original sentence is their own creation. One possible example is: "I go to the movies," "I went to the movies," "I will go to the movies," "he goes to the movies," "he will go to the movies," etc. A teacher could specify the exact form of the verb required. For example, in terms of the sentence used above, the correct answer for requesting present tense, third person, feminine singular and plural would be "she goes to the movies/they go to the movies."