Present Simple and Present Continuous - task cards different than all the others 😯

My kids are revising the difference between Present Simple and Present Continuous. I wanted to make something for them that will help them practise on their own (hello independence!). I asked myself the following question: when in real life do you have to put the verb in the sentence in the correct form? 😂

I wanted something that will make my kids think "ok ... so I want to say something about my routine, I do it everyday ... how should I say it?" At the same time it had to be something that I could create, something with error correction, and something that every one of them could use easily. It took me two weeks to come up with an idea. It finally dawned on me yesterday! Queue a few hours by the computer - printer - laminating machine - sellotape - magnets 😅

The cards I made are for kids whose L1 is Polish because all my kids speak Polish. You can easily change them into any language though. The top of the card says "you want to say:" and then the underlined part is the actual sentence you want to say. The blue and green bits are there to help the kids decide whether the sentence is about a routine activity or maybe it's a fact or maybe it's happening right now. It basically remind them the options. The kids have to think what they want to put across. The aim of the activity is to create a whole complete sentence using the words provided. The difficulty here is to make a correct sentence, not to remember all the words they need to make it (hello isolation of difficulty!).

The aim here is for the kids to actually think about what they're saying not simply what time expression they're supposed to use.

I don't know, maybe I'm overcomplicating things. But I really feel that they will understand what they're saying better and will remember it when creating their own sentences.

If you think it might be a good way to practise and make kids understand the difference between the two tenses better (and you teach in Poland) you can download my cards in the DOWNLOADS section above. You need to create a Montenglish account to do so, if you haven't got one yet 😉

Print out the cards and laminate them. Then cut each page into four cards. Cut off the answers and stick them back together with the right cards using sellotape all around the connecting edge. You're creating a sort of a hinge. This way you can hide the answer.

I put magnet stickers at the back of my cards to keep the answers from bending or (god forbid!) revealing themselves before my kids have time to think 😝

Of course what's going to happen is also a 90 min long lesson of Tense Race!!!! 🎉🎉 Only the best game to really drill the difference between the two tenses in a fun and competitive way! Read about Tense Race here.

Ps. if you spot any typos in the cards do let me know 😉