Verb Worksheet for Class 2
Three printable sheets, with full answer keys
A verb is a doing word. It tells you what someone or something does: run, eat, sing, painted. The test a six year old can use is one question, asked out loud: what is the person doing? The answer they say back is the verb.
Class 2 adds three more things on top. The being verbs is, am and are (I am, he is, they are). The past tense, which usually means adding ed, with a few spelling rules and about nine common verbs that ignore ed completely. And the s rule: she plays but they play. There are three printable sheets below, each with its answer key on this page.
No sign-up. Answer keys are further down this page.
- A verb is a doing word. The test your child can use on their own: ask what is the person doing? and the answer they say out loud is the verb.
- The being verbs fit on one line and are worth memorising: I am, he or she or it is, we and you and they are. Most Class 2 mistakes vanish the day that line sticks.
- Past tense usually means adding ed, with three spelling rules (stop becomes stopped, cry becomes cried), plus about nine everyday verbs that ignore ed and simply have to be learned: go became went, eat became ate.
- The s trap is the most useful thing on this page. On a naming word, s means more than one (two bags). On a doing word, s means only one (she plays). Same letter, opposite meaning.
What a doing word is, in Class 2 words
Your child's teacher will call it a verb. The textbook usually calls it a doing word or an action word, and that second name is the one worth using at home, because it says exactly what the word does.
The whole idea fits into one question a six year old can ask themselves. What is the person doing? The answer they say out loud is the verb. In Ravi kicked the ball, ask what Ravi did, and your child says kicked. They have found the verb before the pencil has moved.
| Sentence | Ask: what is the person doing? | The doing word |
|---|---|---|
| Meera reads a new story every night. | She reads. | reads |
| Amit and Sara ran to the bus stop. | They ran. | ran |
| The baby drinks milk in the morning. | She drinks. | drinks |
| Anu painted a big yellow sun at school. | She painted. | painted |
Notice that the doing word changes shape from row to row: reads, ran, drinks, painted. That is the part Class 2 spends the whole year on, and the rest of this page is about those shapes. First, though, there are two kinds of verb, and the second kind surprises most parents.
- Action verbs. Something happens. Run, jump, eat, write, sing, clap, paint, drink. You can act these out in the room, which is exactly how to teach them to a six year old.
- Being verbs. is, am, are. Nothing is happening at all. Meera is happy has no action in it, and is is still the verb of that sentence. Children rarely think of these as verbs, and they use them in almost every sentence they speak, so they get their own section below.
One warning about worksheets found online. A Class 2 verb sheet full of words like arrange or discover has quietly stopped testing grammar and started testing reading. Every verb on the three sheets here is one your child can decode: walk, stop, cry, go, eat, run.
Two minutes at the dinner table: ask your child to tell you three things they did at school today. Every answer they give will have a verb in it, and most of them will be in the past tense. Say the verb back to them and ask what it was yesterday. You have just taught the next two sections without printing anything.
is, am, are: the three words Class 2 gets wrong most
These three small words carry more Class 2 errors than any other part of the syllabus, for a simple reason. Your child uses them dozens of times an hour when they speak, so a wrong habit gets thousands of repetitions before anyone corrects it on paper.
The good news is that the whole rule fits on one line: I am, he or she or it is, we and you and they are. Once that line is memorised, the topic is finished.
| Who or what you are talking about | Use | Example |
|---|---|---|
| I (only ever I) | am | I am in Class 2 this year. |
| He, she, it, or one person or thing | is | Meera is my best friend. The cat is asleep. |
| We, you, they, or two or more | are | Ravi and Dev are ready for the race. |
Almost every mistake your child makes here is one of these four, and each one is the same error wearing a different hat: the being verb has not been matched to how many people the sentence is about.
- I is six years old becomes I am six years old. The word I never takes anything except am.
- They is my friends becomes They are my friends. More than one, so are.
- Ravi and Dev is here becomes Ravi and Dev are here. Two names count as more than one, and children miss this because each name on its own would take is.
- The books is on the table becomes The books are on the table. Here the s on books is the clue, and your child has to notice it before choosing.
That last one is a preview of the trickiest idea on this page, which has its own section further down. The s at the end of a naming word tells you there are many, and it pushes the verb the other way.
The fastest correction there is: do not tell your child the right word. Say their sentence back to them exactly as they said it, in a friendly voice, and let them hear it. Six year olds have heard correct English for years, and their ear catches I is happy long before their eye catches it on paper. A child who hears their own mistake almost never repeats it.
Present and past: the ed rules and the odd ones
Tense sounds like a big grammar word and it is a small idea. Now or before. Today I walk to school. Yesterday I walked to school. Same verb, different ending, and the ending is what tells you when it happened.
For most Class 2 verbs the past is made by adding ed, and there are exactly three spelling rules to know. Teach them in this order, because each one only makes sense once the one before it is solid.
Most verbs: just add ed
walk becomes walked, play becomes played, wash becomes washed, help becomes helped, paint becomes painted. Nothing else changes. This is the great majority of verbs your child will meet in Class 2, so it is worth practising until it is boring.
Short verbs: double the last letter, then add ed
stop becomes stopped, clap becomes clapped, hop becomes hopped, drop becomes dropped. These are short verbs with one vowel in the middle and one consonant at the end. Say the two spellings out loud, stoped and stopped, and most children can hear that the second one is right.
Verbs ending in y: change the y to i, then add ed
cry becomes cried, try becomes tried, carry becomes carried, hurry becomes hurried. One catch worth mentioning once: this only happens when the letter before the y is not a vowel. That is why play keeps its y and becomes played, not plaied.
Then there are the verbs that ignore all three rules. They are the most common verbs in English, which is unfair but also useful, because your child hears the correct forms every day. There is no rule to teach here. These simply have to be known, and this short table is the one to stick on the fridge.
| Now (present) | Before (past) | In a sentence |
|---|---|---|
| go | went | Yesterday Ravi went to his uncle's house. |
| eat | ate | We ate hot samosas after the cricket match. |
| come | came | My cousins came to our house last Sunday. |
| run | ran | Amit and Sara ran to the bus stop. |
| see | saw | Anu saw a big green parrot in the tree. |
| do | did | Dev did all his homework before dinner. |
| have | had | Priya had a new bag on the first day. |
| is | was | The sky was full of grey clouds yesterday. |
| are | were | We were at my grandmother's house last week. |
Those nine cover almost every past-tense mistake a Class 2 child makes. I goed, she eated, we runned are not careless errors at all. They are your child correctly applying rule 1 to a verb that does not follow it, which means the rule has landed and only the exceptions are missing.
Worth knowing about the ed ending: it is easy to write and easy to lose in speech. Many Indian children write walked perfectly on a worksheet and then say walk when they read the same sentence aloud, because the final d sound is soft and gets swallowed. A written sheet marks that answer correct. Only listening to your child read catches it, which is why the two-minute read-aloud after every sheet is worth more than another sheet.
She plays, they play: the s that means the opposite
If you read only one section on this page, read this one. It is the classic Class 2 error, it is the one that survives longest into Class 3 and 4, and it is confusing for a genuinely good reason that nobody usually explains to the child.
Your child has already learned, in Class 1, that an s on a naming word means more than one. One bag, two bags. One cat, three cats. That rule is solid, they have practised it for a year, and they trust it.
Now Class 2 says: an s on a doing word means only one. She plays. He runs. The cat sleeps. But: they play, we run, the cats sleep. Same letter, opposite meaning, and no worksheet ever says this out loud. Say it out loud at home and half the confusion goes.
| How many | Naming word | Doing word | Whole sentence |
|---|---|---|---|
| One | no s | takes s | Meera plays in the park. |
| More than one | takes s | no s | The girls play in the park. |
| One | no s | takes s | My brother goes to school by bus. |
| More than one | takes s | no s | My brothers go to school by bus. |
Read those four rows down the last column with your child and let them spot it themselves: the s moves from one word to the other. It is never on both, and it is never on neither.
Two small extras Class 2 needs alongside it. A verb ending in a hissing sound takes es rather than s for one person: go becomes goes, watch becomes watches, wash becomes washes. And a verb ending in a consonant plus y follows the same y rule as the past tense: cry becomes cries, carry becomes carries.
Here are the four mistakes that show up on nearly every Class 2 paper, with what is actually going wrong in each one.
| What your child writes | What it should be | What has gone wrong |
|---|---|---|
| He go to school. | He goes to school. | One person, so the verb needs its s (and this one needs es) |
| She don't like mangoes. | She doesn't like mangoes. | Same rule hiding inside do. One person takes does, not do |
| I goed to the park. | I went to the park. | The ed rule applied to a verb that ignores it. Nothing to reteach, just learn went |
| Yesterday I go to the shop. | Yesterday I went to the shop. | The tense was never changed at all. The word yesterday is the clue that was missed |
That last one is worth watching for, because it is not really a verb mistake. Your child has read the sentence without noticing the time word at the front. Teaching them to look for yesterday, last night or last Sunday first, before they write anything, fixes it faster than any amount of tense drilling.
A ten second check your child can do alone: point at the person the sentence is about and ask, one or more than one? If it is one, the doing word wants its s. If it is more than one, the doing word goes bare. Two questions, in that order, and the whole topic becomes a decision rather than a guess.
Answer keys for all three worksheets
Every answer for all three sheets is below, in the order the exercises appear, with the rule named in brackets wherever the answer is a tricky one. Mark it sitting next to your child rather than after they have gone to bed, because the useful part is asking why they chose what they chose.
Worksheet 1
Exercise 1: circle the doing word in each sentence
- kicked (Ravi kicked the ball across the big playground. Ask what Ravi did.)
- reads (Meera reads a new story book every night.)
- ran (Amit and Sara ran to the bus stop. This is the past of run, and it does not take ed.)
Exercise 2: write is, am or are in each blank
- am (the word I only ever takes am)
- is (one person, Meera)
- are (two people, Ravi and Dev)
- is (one cat)
Exercise 3: write the doing word for each picture
- run
- swim
- sleep
- sing
- dance
If your child wrote running or swimming, mark it right and say the shorter word back to them. They have named the action correctly, which is the whole point of the exercise.
Exercise 4: circle the doing word in each pair
- jump (table names a thing)
- read (bag names a thing)
- sing (chair names a thing)
- drink (milk names a thing)
- write (pencil names a thing)
- run (shoe names a thing)
Exercise 5: circle the correct word in the brackets
- is (one sister)
- are (we is more than one)
- am (the word I only ever takes am)
Worksheet 2
Exercise 1: write the past tense, just add ed
- walked
- played (the y stays, because the letter before it is a vowel)
- washed
- looked
- helped
- painted
Exercise 2: double the last letter, then add ed
- stopped (doubling rule)
- clapped (doubling rule)
- hopped (doubling rule)
- dropped (doubling rule)
- planned (doubling rule)
- patted (doubling rule)
Exercise 3: change the y to i, then add ed
- cried (y rule)
- tried (y rule)
- carried (y rule)
- hurried (y rule)
- copied (y rule)
- dried (y rule)
Exercise 4: write the past tense of the word in brackets
- Yesterday Meera walked to school with Anu. (just add ed)
- Last night the baby cried for one hour. (y rule)
- The bus stopped near our house last evening. (doubling rule)
Exercise 5: one word in each sentence is wrong, write it correctly
- walked (the word yesterday at the front means the tense had to change)
- stopped (doubling rule: stoped has one p, it needs two)
- cried (y rule: the y becomes i before ed)
Worksheet 3
Exercise 1: write the past tense, these verbs do not take ed
- go → went
- eat → ate
- come → came
- run → ran
- see → saw
- do → did
- have → had
- is → was
- are → were
Exercise 2: circle the correct verb in the brackets
- plays (one person, so the doing word takes its s)
- walk (two sisters, so the doing word goes bare)
- cries (one baby, and the y rule turns cry into cries)
- like (two people, Dev and Anu, so no s)
Exercise 3: one word in each sentence is wrong, write it correctly
- goes (one person, and go takes es rather than s)
- doesn't (one sister, so does and not do)
- went (there is no goed; go ignores the ed rule)
- went (last Sunday means the tense had to change and never did)
Exercise 4: read the story and write each verb in the past tense
- goes → went
- sees → saw
- run → ran
- eat → ate
- come → came
All five ignore the ed rule, which is why this is the last exercise. A child who writes goed or seed here has understood the rule perfectly and simply met the exceptions, so praise the thinking and then learn the five words.
One last step, and it takes two minutes. Once a sheet is marked, point at any sentence on it and ask your child to read it aloud. The words are ones they have just worked with, so nothing on the page is new. What you are listening for is the ed at the end: a child who writes walked and says walk has half the tense, and a written sheet will never tell you that.
ASER 2024: 44.8% of Class 5 children in government schools could read a Class 2 level text, and that test measures reading in the regional language, not English. Those children had been filling worksheets for years. Written work keeps moving because it gets checked at home. Reading aloud usually does not get checked at all, so it quietly falls behind.
A worksheet marks the ed. It cannot hear whether your child said it.
The ed at the end of a verb is the softest sound in the sentence and the easiest one to drop. Your child can write walked correctly on every line of a worksheet and still say walk when they read that same line aloud. Paper cannot tell the difference, so nobody catches it.
ZigZu is an AI Reading Coach built for Indian children aged 4 to 8. Your child reads a storybook aloud, ZigZu listens to every word, and corrects pronunciation gently in real time, in Indian English. It catches the half a worksheet has to leave out.
200+ levelled storybooks, from first three-letter words to full chapter books. Progress reports that show you which sounds and words your child has mastered and which still need work.
Live on Android & iOS in India · Free to start · No credit card required
Frequently asked questions
A verb is a doing word. It tells you what someone or something does: run, eat, sing, painted. Class 2 also learns the being verbs is, am and are, which say what someone is rather than what they do. The quickest test at home is one question, asked out loud: what is the person doing? Ask it and your child will usually say the verb before they write anything.
They are the same verb in three shapes, and which one you use depends on who the sentence is about. Use am only with I. Use is with he, she, it, or any one person or thing. Use are with we, you, they, or any two or more. I am six. Meera is my friend. Ravi and Dev are ready. That single line covers the whole topic.
Start with the idea, not the spelling. Past tense means before, not now. Today I walk, yesterday I walked. Then teach the three spelling rules in order: most verbs just add ed, short verbs double the last letter first, and verbs ending in y change the y to i. Finally learn the odd ones by heart, because go, eat, see and run follow no rule at all.
Because Class 1 taught them that an s means more than one, and on a doing word it means the opposite. He goes is one person. They go is many. Nobody usually says that contradiction out loud to the child, so they apply the older rule. Say it plainly at home, then ask one question before every answer: is this sentence about one person, or more than one?
Nine cover almost everything a Class 2 child meets: go became went, eat became ate, come became came, run became ran, see became saw, do became did, have became had, is became was, and are became were. There is no rule behind these, so they are learned rather than worked out. A fridge list read aloud once a day works better than any worksheet.
They follow the grammar sequence in NCERT's Class 2 English books, Marigold Book 2 and Raindrops 2, which CBSE schools across India use. The verbs, sentence patterns and vocabulary match what a Class 2 child actually meets in school. ICSE and state board syllabuses cover the same core ground at this level, so the three sheets work just as well for those children.