The Irregular Verbs: be, have, do, go — Today and Yesterday

Four verbs only, and the four that break every rule: this 2nd grade verb-forms page prints a table with go, have, be and do down the left and two columns, he/she today and yesterday. Two cells are given as anchors — goes and was — and six are dashed boxes: went, has, had, is, does, did. Under the table are three sentences with a gap and the base verb in a chip: Every morning Leo ______ to school (go). Yesterday Tom ______ at the zoo (be). Yesterday Lily ______ a bad cold (have). The child fills the table first, then uses it for the sentences. There are no pictures on this page; the verbs are too abstract to draw.

Be, have, do and go are the four verbs a child uses most and the four that no rule predicts — is and was share not a single letter with be. They are learned as a set, by memory and by hearing, which is why this page isolates them instead of mixing them into a table of regular verbs where a child could lean on -s and -ed. The two given cells are placed so a child who knows goes can find went by reading across, and a child who knows was can find is by reading back. The teacher reads the three sentences aloud with the child's answers in place; a wrong form of these verbs is the one a second grader can always hear.

One sheet, no pictures, large dashed boxes. Use it after the regular today-and-yesterday table so the child meets the rule before the exceptions, and keep it as a reference: the finished table is a small chart of the four verbs the child will need in every piece of writing. The find-the-verb page then asks the child to spot forms like went and was inside sentences and give back the base verb.