Activities: “Participles in English: What are they and how are they used?”
Activity 1: Spot the participles
The story below contains some participles. Can you spot them all?
There are both present participles (root + -ing) and past participles (root + -edor irregular). Can you spot them all?
The Moores go on vacation!
They’ll be visiting a lot of fun places while they are in New York. Mike is going to enjoy the crowded streets and will spend some time looking up at skyscrapers. He works in construction, so he loves to watch people building new high rises!
Jill wants to visit some museums. She is fascinated by Ancient Egypt, so she is expecting that their visit to the Metropolitan Art Museum will be exciting . She has seen other museums with Egyptian art, but she thinks she’ll be amazed by the collection at the Met, as it is very well- known .
Jimmy is getting a special treat too! He loves the musical Beauty and the Beast , so his mom and dad have bought tickets for the Broadway production. Jimmy doesn’t know, and his parents are expecting him to be very surprised when they take him to the theater.
They are all looking forward to a few other family experiences too. Jimmy is excited to eat hot dogs from a cart (he is a growing boy, after all), Mike is hoping to take the ferry out to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, and Jill is planning to enjoy a relaxing ride in a horse- drawn carriage!
Activity 2: Write the participles
Write the past and present participle form for each of the verbs below.
Hint: Many of them have irregular past participles or require special spelling rules. Make sure to check your irregular verbs reference sheet and your sheet of English spelling rules for endings!
to watch
past participle:
present participle:
to win
past participle:
present participle:
to understand
past participle:
present participle:
to play
past participle:
present participle:
to make
past participle:
present participle:
to read
past participle:
present participle:
to pay
past participle:
present participle:
to clean
past participle:
present participle:
to bike
past participle:
present participle:
to agree
past participle:
present participle:
to bury
past participle:
present participle: