Action Verbs Worksheets

About this resource

A verb is an action word: it tells what someone or something does. This pack teaches that one idea in three ways, easiest to hardest: sort words into "Action word" and "Not an action word" by asking "can I do it?", circle the action word in a short sentence, and fill in the blank from a word box where only one word fits each clue. A helper page with drawn pictures in kid words starts it off, and a last page has the child write and draw their own.

EVERYTHING INSIDE (27 pages)

• 10 student pages in 5 page types (below), each with a big "My name" line and one short instruction
• 56 practice items, all invented: 20 words to sort, 18 sentences to circle in, 18 sentences to fill in; no sentence repeats across the student pages
• 20 cut-and-glue words, ten a page, in a block that takes 5 straight cuts
• 1 rules page for the teacher (with a blank line for your program's own wording), 3 answer keys generated from the same data as the pages
• 1 tracker (8 rows), 1 class progress grid, 1 team note, 1 home page, 1 filled example (an invented student), 1 phrase bank (17 starters)
• 1 binder cover and 5 divider tabs with a spine label to cut out
• Start Here, a how-to-read-a-page page, and a back page

THE FIVE PAGE TYPES (dots show the level, never color)

1. Action Word Helper (1 dot) — three drawn figures (run, jump, clap) and the question "can I do it?"

2. Sort It (1 dot, 2 pages) — cut ten words a page (five action words and five that are not) and glue each one in the right box.

3. Circle It (2 dots, 3 pages) — a short sentence and three word buttons; the child circles the action word.

4. Fill in the Blank (2 dots, 3 pages) — a box of eight words and six sentences; one box word fits each sentence and two decoys fit none. The child writes it on primary lines.

5. Write Your Own (3 dots, 1 page) — three action words are given; the child draws each and writes a sentence with it.

Circle It and Fill in the Blank come in three sets of six sentences (A, B, C), so a child never meets the same sentence twice.

Built For The Child Holding The Page

A big "My name" line, one short instruction with a picture, large rounded letters, and writing boxes on primary lines at least 0.62 inch tall. Nothing on a student page is written for an adult. Cutting is limited to Sort It: ten pieces on each of two pages, touching edge to edge, each at least 1.1 inch on every side.

Type In, Or Print

The name and date lines, the tracker, the class grid, the team note, the home page and the rules-page note box are type-in fields in any PDF reader (129 fields in all). The words a student writes in the boxes are pencil work. This is a fillable PDF; it is not a Google Slides or PowerPoint file.

Who This Is For

First through third grade classrooms, self-contained and resource rooms, and any teacher working with an older student who still needs to find the action word in a sentence. The home page sends the same job to a family; the team note hands off what changed since the last meeting.

What This Is, And What It Is Not

Action verb practice with the record-keeping around it. It is not a probe, a goal bank or a score sheet, not a writing assessment, and not a claim about any student's age or rate of progress. Is, am and are, helping verbs, past tense and -ing forms, and thinking words are not practiced — the rules page names each one as left out on purpose.