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! ⏰