Cards can be used to display information for mix and match, spelling and trivia games. One card game you can use for teaching verb tenses is sentence completion flash cards. In this game, sentences are written on the back of cards, with blanks left in every sentence. When students pick up a card, they have to fill in the blank with the proper (conjugated) verb. Another type of game is a concentration card game. In this game, 16 cards are laid face down on a table. Every card has a matching card that is the same verb conjugated in a different tense. Students turn over cards until they find two with matching verbs.
You can use storytelling to teach verb tenses. One very simple game involves reading out a story to the class. In this game, you read a story with some verbs in the wrong tense. Students have to write down the list of incorrectly conjugated verbs on a piece of paper as they listen, getting a point for each one they point out. Another game involves giving the students a written story with blanks in places where verbs should be. Students get a point for every blank they can fill in with the correct verb.
There are some online video games that you can use to teach verb tenses. The BBC website has a game called "Floppy and the Puppies," where two characters speak to each other, and player has to fill in the blanks with verbs in the proper tense. The website "FunBrain" has a game called "2 Bee or not to Bee" where you compete against the computer to conjugate as many sentences as possible. Dr. Larry Rider of the University of Redland has a list to many online games for verb conjugation, including several video games.
In a quiz game, you simply ask the students directly how they would conjugate a given verb in a particular tense. For example, you can ask a question like "how would you conjugate the verb "to throw" in the simple past tense?" One quiz game you can play is individual verb tense trivia. In this game, you ask the questions to the entire class, and each student has a chance to respond to every question on a ballot. Another quiz game you can play is team trivia. In this game, the students are arranged into teams, and each team needs to agree on an answer to each question. At the end of the game, each team submits a ballot with all their answers.