Verbs: Action Words

Every sentence needs a worker. That worker is called a verb! A verb is a word that shows action. It tells us what someone or something does. Jump, eat, sing, run, and sleep are all verbs. Without a verb, a sentence just sits there and does nothing. With a verb, the sentence moves and tells a story! 🏃

Think of a sentence like a car. The noun is the car itself, but the verb is the engine. Without the engine, the car just sits in the driveway and goes nowhere! The verb is what makes everything go. In the sentence The dog runs fast, the word runs is the engine. It tells us what the dog does.

Verbs can show all kinds of actions. Some verbs show big movements, like jump, swim, or dance. Some show quiet actions, like sit, sleep, or wait. Some show thinking, like dream or wonder. No matter what kind of action it is, if it is something someone does or feels, it is probably a verb! 💭

Verbs also tell us WHEN something happens. If it is happening now, we say it is present tense. The cat sleeps now. If it already happened, we say it is past tense. The cat slept last night. The same verb changes its shape to tell us about time. That is really clever! ⏰

Now let us look at verbs inside real sentences. In the sentence The bird sings a song, the verb is sings. In the sentence My brother eats his lunch, the verb is eats. To find the verb, ask yourself: what is the person or thing DOING in this sentence? The answer is your verb! 🐦

You can also practice by doing an action and naming it! Clap your hands. That action is called clap. Stomp your feet. That action is called stomp. Every move your body makes has a verb to describe it. You are surrounded by verbs every single day! 👏