Was Were with Emotions Small cards | Simple Past Grammar for ESL ELL

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These small cards are a versatile addition to your ESL classroom! They provide countless opportunities for hands-on practice with emotions, time expressions, and the simple past of was and were. Perfect for individual work, pair activities, learning centers, and small groups, the cards help students develop listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills through interactive games and grammar practice. Their compact size makes them easy to prepare, store, and reuse throughout the school year, giving teachers a flexible resource for engaging and meaningful language learning.

Listening Activity: Listen and Find

Listen and Find is a simple and engaging way to develop students' listening comprehension. Place the emotions and the time expressions small cards on the table. The teacher says a sentence using the target grammar and vocabulary, for example:

Teacher: He was sick yesterday.

Students listen carefully, find the correct small cards (sick and yesterday), place them together, and repeat the complete sentence:

Student: He was sick yesterday.

Students become more confident, they can say the sentences for the classmates to find: She was happy at the party.

Sorting Activity: Positive, Negative, and Physical Feelings

Help students critical thinking skills by sorting the emotion small cards into three categories: Positive, Negative, and Physical feelings.

Spread the small cards on a table or place them in a pocket chart. Students work individually, in pairs,

Once the cards are sorted, encourage students to make simple past sentences using was and were: She was happy.

📖 Reading Activities

Read and Match

Sentence strips are provided to place along the small cards on the table. Students read each sentence carefully and match it with the correct emotion and time expression cards.

For example, students can match: He was embarrassed last Sunday.

After matching the cards, encourage students to read the complete sentence aloud and check their answers with a partner.

Reading Activity: Cut and Match

Add a hands-on reading activity to your Simple Past lessons by cutting the words from the small cards. Teachers separate the vocabulary words from the emotion pictures and mix them up on the table. Students read each word, find the matching emotion picture, and place the pieces together.

✍ Writing Activities

Write the Sentence

Put the small cards to work in a fun writing activity! Students pick one emotion card and one time expression card and use them to create a complete sentence using the simple past of was and were.

For example, a student may choose the cards worried and after school and write:

She was worried after school.

This hands-on activity helps students connect vocabulary with grammar while practicing sentence structure, capitalization, punctuation, and handwriting.

Story Building

Encourage students to become creative writers with this simple past storytelling activity! Students draw several emotion and time expression small cards and use them as prompts to create a short story. They can write about themselves, family members, friends, or imaginary characters while practicing the use of was and were.

Grammar Drill Writing Practice

Help students master the simple past of was and were with this structured grammar drill. Students use the picture prompts to write three different sentence patterns: an affirmative sentence, a negative sentence, and a question.

For example, with the picture hungry, students write: He was hungry.

This activity gives learners repeated practice with sentence structure while reinforcing emotion vocabulary. Students improve their grammar, handwriting, and punctuation skills as they transform the same idea into different sentence forms. Teachers can encourage students to read their answers aloud or create additional examples using different pronouns and emotions for extra speaking and writing practice.

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