Smartboard activities can make learning fun.
Helping verbs refer to the word that comes before a verb to help illustrate an action; they tell a reader when the main verb took place. For example, in the sentence "The bird is flying away," "is" is the helping verb. Helping verbs set the tense for the main verb. There are a number of smartboard activities that can help you teach or understand helping verbs. You can fill in the gaps, find the helping verb in a sentence and learn singular and plural helping verbs.
What is a Helping Verb?
Ask the question "What is a helping verb?" Listen to any suggestions or add some suggestions of your own, before clicking on the smartboard to reveal the basic definition. This is a warm-up activity to get students thinking.
Fill in the Gaps
Present a selection of incomplete sentences on the smartboard along with a list of helping verbs. Each sentence should be missing a helping verb. Ask the students to drag a helping verb from the list into the sentence to create a complete sentence. Repeat until all the sentences are completed.
Singular and Plural
Once students have become familiar with some helping verbs, place some sentences that are missing a helping verb onto the smartboard. Some sentences should require a singular helping verb such as "was" and some should require a plural helping verb such as "were." Ask the students whether the verb should be singular or plural before getting them to drag the correct verb into the correct gap. Repeat this activity for different verbs such as "have" and "has" and "does" and "do."
Find the Helping Verb
Present a complete paragraph of text or a short story on the smartboard. Using the interactive tools available, ask students to pick out the helping verbs from the text.
