Was Were with Emotions Flashcards and Time Expressions Activities | Simple Past Grammar for ESL ELL

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Bring the Simple Past to life with this engaging set of Was/Were with Emotions and Time Expression Flashcards! Designed for elementary ESL, EFL, and ELL classrooms, these flashcards provide a hands-on approach to teaching the Simple Past of the verb to be through meaningful communication and interactive games.

Teachers will appreciate the flexibility of this resource. The flashcards can be used for acting games, sorting activities, timelines, matching games, sentence-building exercises, dice games, question-and-answer practice, memory games, classroom surveys, and storytelling activities. They are also ideal for review lessons and can easily be adapted for different proficiency levels.

Introducing Emotions in the Simple Past with Was and Were

Students can begin to describe past experiences with sentences such as "I was happy yesterday.

To support this concept, introduce emotion flashcards together with common past time expressions.

One effective teaching feature of this resource is the use of left-pointing arrows. Encourage students to notice that the arrows point to the left because the past is often represented as being "behind us" or "before now."

 Activity: Roll, Pick, and Make a Sentence!

One student rolls the printable time expression die in this resource. Another student chooses an emotion flashcard. Together, they make a sentence using the Simple Past of the verb to be based on the die.

For example: She was hungry after school.

Students develop sentence-building skills while working cooperatively with their classmates. The game can be used for whole-class instruction.

Who Was...? Who Were...?

The teacher places several emotion flashcards on the board and writes a student's name under each picture. Then, the teacher asks questions about the flashcards.

Teacher: Who was distracted in class?
Students: Pete!
Students: Pete was distracted.

Teacher: Who was sick?
Students: Eli!
Students: Eli was sick.

Teacher: Who were thirsty in class?
Students: Tim and Lili!
Students: They were thirsty.

This interactive activity helps elementary ESL, EFL, and ELL students practice the correct use of was and were with emotions, feelings, and states.

Craft Stick Puppets for Was and Were

Bring the Simple Past to life with these fun craft stick puppets! This resource includes printable templates for the words was and were, allowing teachers to create their own classroom puppets for interactive grammar practice.

During lessons, the teacher can hold up the correct puppet while asking questions or building sentences, giving students a visual cue that reinforces the grammar pattern.

Act It Out and Guess the Emotion! Emotion Charades

The teacher secretly shows one student an emotion flashcard. The student studies the picture and then acts out the emotion without speaking while the rest of the class watches carefully.

The teacher encourages students to guess by asking questions in the Simple Past: Was she angry?

Students answer using complete sentences:

Emotion Timeline

Divide the board into three columns labeled Morning, Afternoon, and Night. The teacher places an emotion flashcard in each section and guides students in describing the events using the Simple Past of the verb to be.

For example: He was embarrassed in the morning.  He was confused in the afternoon.    He was excited at night.

After modeling, ask comprehension questions: When was he embarrassed?

Students answer in complete sentences: He was embarrassed in the morning.

Once students understand the pattern, simply change the flashcards to create new timelines and encourage the class to make their own Simple Past sentences.

Sorting Emotions and Feelings

Introducing emotions by categories helps young English language learners build vocabulary. To begin this activity, the teacher presents the emotion flashcards and sort the cards into three groups on the board:  😊  Positive Emotions,    😟 Negative Emotions,   🤒 Physical Feelings

This hands-on sorting activity helps elementary ESL, EFL, and ELL students organize new vocabulary into meaningful groups.

Building Simple Past Sentences with Time Expression Flashcards

Time expression flashcards provide young English language learners with a visual cue to build complete sentences in the Simple Past. The teacher places a time expression flashcard on the board and reviews its meaning with the class. Then, the teacher adds an emotion flashcard and models a sentence using the verb to be.

For example: He was scared this morning.

After modeling, the teacher can ask questions to encourage participation: Who was scared this morning?

The teacher can easily replace the emotion or time expression flashcards to create many new combinations for speaking practice.

Correct the Wrong Sentence!

Practicing negative sentences in the Simple Past. For this activity, the teacher shows an emotion flashcard to the class and deliberately says a sentence that is not true about the picture. Students must listen carefully, identify the mistake, and correct it using a negative sentence followed by the correct affirmative sentence.

For example, the teacher shows the distracted flashcard and says: Teacher: She was sad.

Students respond: Students: She wasn't sad. She was distracted.

The teacher can continue with other flashcards:

This activity encourages students to pay close attention to the visual clues on the flashcards while practicing both affirmative and negative forms of the Simple Past of the verb to be.

Who? When? Where? – Asking Questions in the Simple Past

Encourage them to ask and answer questions about emotions and past events. For this activity, the teacher places an emotion flashcard, a time expression flashcard, and, if desired, a name card on the board. Then, the teacher writes or points to the question words:  Who?,When?,Where?

Using the flashcards as clues, the teacher asks questions such as: Who was sick?  When was Tim sick?  Where was Tim sick?

Students answer in complete Simple Past sentences: Tim was sick. Tim was sick after school. Tim was sick after school at school.

The teacher can easily change the flashcards to create new combinations and encourage students to ask the questions themselves.

If you're looking for additional ways to teach emotions and feelings to young learners, be sure to visit our Preschool Emotions and Feelings blog post! You'll discover a collection of fun, hands-on activities designed to help children recognize, name, and express their emotions while developing essential social and language skills.

Explore engaging games, colorful flashcards, sorting activities, crafts, songs, movement activities, and classroom ideas that make learning about feelings exciting and meaningful. These activities are perfect for preschool, pre-k, kindergarten, ESL, EFL, and ELL classrooms, as well as for speech therapy and special education settings.

https://eflpreschoolteachers.blogspot.com/2020/09/emotions-theme-for-kindergarten.html