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Action verb board & card games can help to learn action verbs in the classroom by practicing them in actual sentence constructions (with the correct time, person…). And Bingos are also a great way to revise them while keeping it fun.
I found 10 action verb board and card games available. I most recommend Photo Fish Verbs which is such fun for smaller children, Woosh! which is quite comprehensive, and for ESL classes The Great Verb Game which is extremely flexible and allows to fully manage the progress of students.
I built the following comparison table to help you chose the best verb board game for you.
| Game | Age | Players | Price | For | Extras | Lang | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Whoosh! | 4+ | 1‑6 | $$$$ | ELA | N | ★★★★☆ | |
| Photo Fish Verbs | 4+ | 2+ | $$$$ | ELA | N | ★★★★★ | |
| Verbs Bingo | 4+ | <30 | $$$$ | ELA | N | ★★★★☆ | |
| Sequencing Verb Tenses | 5+ | 2-4 | $$$ | ELA | N | ★★★☆☆ | |
| 100 Irregular Past Tense Verbs | 6‑8 | 1-4 | $$$ | ELA | N | ★★★☆☆ | |
| 208 Irregular Verbs | 6‑11 | 1-4 | $$$ | ELA | N | ★★★☆☆ | |
| Find that Action Verb | 4‑5 | 1-12 | $$ | ELA / ESL | CD | Y | ★★★☆☆ |
| Verb Bingo | 4+ | <32 | $$$ | ESL | DG | Y | ★★★☆☆ |
| Phrase It | 7+ | <14 | $$$ | ESL | N | ★★★★☆ | |
| The Great Verb Game | 4+ | 2‑6 | $$ | ESL | DG | Y | ★★★★★ |
Where:
- For: ELA (English Language Arts) / ESL (English as a Second language)
- Extra Content Included: DG (Digital Game) / CD (Audio CD)
- Lang: Available in multiple languages Y (Yes) or N (No)
7 Action Verb Board and Card Games for ELA Classrooms
Whoosh! The Action Verb Game
(Super Duper Publications)
★★★★☆
Age: 4+
Players: 1-6
Author: Ashley Drennan, Karla Duncan, and Thomas Webber
Recommended for: ELA
Woosh! includes:
- 240 illustrated verb
flashcards
- 80 regular verbs and 160 irregular verbs, each divided into 2 levels
- 2880 total sentences
- 6 tenses: past, present, future, past progressive, present progressive, past perfect
- Game board with integrated spinner
- 288 tokens
Basic gameplay proceeds as:
- A player draws a flashcard and reads the given sentence.
- The player must give the correct verb form.
- If correct, the player spins the spinner and collects the corresponding tokens.
I recommend Woosh! because it is versatile enough to meet the needs of a range of learners, offering a variety of methods of gameplay based on age and experience with verbs:
- Allowing pre-readers to list action verbs based on the illustration
- Requiring players to complete multiple sentences before spinning
- Collecting tokens that spell out “WHOOSH” to win
Photo Fish Verbs (Super Duper Publications)
★★★★★
Age: 3-8 (4-11 according to the publisher)
Players: 2+
Author: Sharon Webber
Recommended for: ELA, Therapy, Families, Special education
Photo Fish Verbs includes:
- 1 game board depicting a pond setting
- 2 fishing poles
- 29 pairs of magnetic fish with photos
- A tackle box for storage and transportation
The game procedures are:
- The first player uses a pole to pick up fish from the board.
- If the player correctly identifies the verb, or completes a given task using the verb, he or she keeps the fish.
- Play continues in this way until all fish are removed from the pond.
- The player with the most fish wins.
The game instructions include a number of suggested variations to differentiate instruction, target specific practice needed by individual students, or simply keep the game from becoming boring over time.
I highly recommend Photo Fish Verbs because it is great fun for preschoolers (& usable for pre-readers). Super Duper recommends it until Grade 6 but I find it too childish for students older than Grade 3.
Here are a few tips to make the best use out of it:
- You can sort regular and irregular verbs, for example by color-coding them
- You can work verbs and also pronouns
- You can add fishing poles to play with more children (a group of 4 children for example)
- It perfectly works with 3-year-old children
- It is expensive as a family game, but I recommend it for families though as it is great to trigger conversations with 3 to 5-year-old children
- The game actually works in any language. It can be used to learn a foreign language, or with Spanish native speakers.
- The fish are by pairs, so you can also use them as a matching game or a memory game
- You can use the photos as scenes and go beyond learning verbs for instance vocabulary building, or sentence formation
There is just one drawback: pictures are not always clear, making the verb sometimes difficult to find (even for adults).
Verbs Bingo (Super Duper Publications)
★★★★☆
Ages: 4+
Players: Up to 30
Author: Thomas Webber, Molly DeShong, and Amy Parks
Recommended for: ELA
This verb bingo game includes:
- 30 double-sided bingo boards
- 240 illustrated verb cards
- 2 tenses: past, present
- 96 present tense verbs
- 48 regular past tense verbs
- 48 irregular past tense verbs
- Storage tub
- Bingo chips
In this standard bingo game, a caller reads the card and players cover corresponding spaces on their bingo cards. In order to win, a player needs to cover spaces in some preordained pattern, such as a diagonal line or every space on the card.
It integrates multiple learning styles with visual clues (illustrations match the caller cards to the player cards) and auditory clues (some caller cards use rhymes to hint at the correct answer). It also has possible variations:
- Mix irregular and regular past tense verbs to make more challenging
- Guess the verb based on the illustration to make useful for pre-readers
- Change the verb tense between two sentences with different times
- Players could write additional questions for caller cards to add to the deck
I recommend Verbs Bingo as an interactive way for teachers to practice verbs with younger students. It works for large groups, such as classrooms of up to 30 students. Also, Say & Do Verb Bingo is just as expensive as Whoosh!, but is comparatively limited in that it only addresses 2 tenses.
Sequencing Verb Tenses (Super Duper Publications)
★★★☆☆
Ages: 5+
Players: 2-4
Author: Rynette Kjesbo
Recommended for: ELA
This verb tense card game includes 144 cards:
- 24 regular action verbs in 3-card sequences
- 24 irregular action verbs in 3-card sequences
The object of this game is to make as many correct verb sequences as possible. Players take turns arranging cards to correctly show the verb tenses as they change from past to present to future.
The cards are illustrated and show the same action consistently across tenses. Seeing the same character in each card of the past, present, and future sequence works as a visual clue to the players who are working to identify the tense shifts.
The game works for pre-readers due to the emphasis on illustration. Students can verbally express the correct sequence by reading the pictures only. I also recommend it for older students but only for special education as it isn’t that much fun – except if you use it as a teaching activity for small group instruction, practice, or review rather than as a game.
100 Irregular Past Tense Verbs (Super Duper Publications)
★★★☆☆
Ages: 6-8
Players: 1-4
Author: Molly DeShong
Recommended for: ELA
This card deck game includes:
- 100 irregular past tense verb cards
- 1 Decoder (to auto-check the answers)
This card game requires players to conjugate an irregular verb to past tense by choosing the correct form from a multiple-choice list. Each playing card shows a related cartoon with a sentence containing a blank, then three verbs to choose from. Players take turns earning cards by correctly choosing the verb. The Decoder is a small light the player shines on the card to reveal the correct answer.
Students really enjoy the decoder, which helps them stay engaged in the game, waiting for their turn to use the decoder light. This makes what is otherwise a multiple-choice questionnaire more fun (as well as using cards rather than an answer sheet).
208 Irregular Verbs Playing Cards (Super Duper Publications)
★★★☆☆
Ages: 6-11
Players: Unspecified
Recommended for: ELA
This card deck comes with:
- 208 irregular verb cards (4 52-card game decks)
- A decoder
The cards are regular playing cards with multiple-choice questions on them. You can play it just as “100 Irregular Past Tense Verbs” (using the decoder) and also as a regular playing cards game.
This game might seem limited in its focus because it directly involves irregular verbs only; however, some answer choices show incorrect verbs formed by following regular verb rules, which offers an opportunity to discuss the differences between regular and irregular verbs.
Another nice aspect is that the cards are sorted in different difficulty levels.
Find that Action Verb (Key Education Publishing)
★★★☆☆
Ages: 4-5 (ELA), 4-8 (ESL)
Players: 1-12
Recommended for: ELA / ESL
This game includes:
- Audio CD of 50 action verbs
- 12 game boards
- 120 markers
“Find That Action Verb” is really a basic verb bingo (The CD plays the spoken verbs, and players cover the corresponding image on their board). I recommend it as it is both affordable and straightforward, but only four younger children (not fun for older or advanced learners).
Remark: key Education Publishing is now part of Carson Dellosa
3 Action Verb Board and Card Games for ESL Classrooms
Verb Bingo (ELI Publications)
★★★☆☆
Ages: 6-7 (ESL)
Players: Up to 32
Recommended for: ESL
Verb Bingo includes:
- 66 verb cards organized topically by activity
- 36 bingo boards
The verb cards have an illustration on one side and a verb on the other, as do the bingo cards (which only have 6 spaces).
The rules of this game are standard bingo rules. Matching can be done “Word – Word” / “Word – Picture” / “Picture – Picture”. There are no sentences nor conjugation (only identifying verbs).
Phrase It (ESL with Purpose)
★★★★☆
Ages: 10+ (7+ according to the publisher)
Players: Up to 14
Recommended for: ESL
Phrase It includes a deck of 70 phrasal verb cards and instructions. For the basic procedures:
- Each player is dealt 5 cards which they leave face down.
- On his or her turn, each player flips a card over and tries to name a thing, person, or situation associated with the verbal phrase.
- If the player cannot respond, the challenge moves on to the next player on the left.
- The player who correctly responds wins the card.
- The player with the most cards at the end is the winner.
Other rules include storytelling and playacting. For example, in “Don’t Talk and Drive” players sit in pairs as though driving and riding in a car. The “driver” is challenged not to laugh while the “passenger” uses a question or command to distract the driver. The player gets three cards and must use those three verb phrases in their attempts. They have two total minutes to accomplish the goal. If the driver does not laugh, he or she is the winner.
All rules draw on conversational English phrasal verbs which are often difficult for non-native speakers learners to understand, like “eat out” or “check in.”
There are additional rules for download on the publisher’s website, such as using the cards to practice a job interview conversation. Phrase It is an affordable choice that is best for older learners who can creatively generate sentences using the phrases.
The Great Verb Game (ELI Publications)
★★★★★
Ages: 7-13 (4+ according to publisher)
Players: 2-6
Recommended for: ESL
The Great Verb Game includes:
- 100 verb cards
- 1 verb form die
- 1 interrogative pronouns die
- 1 punctuation symbols die
Cards and dice are combined to give players the parameters required of their sentences. The basic procedures for the game are:
- Player draws a card to reveal the base verb.
- One die is rolled to provide the time.
- A second die is rolled to provide the pronoun.
- A third die is rolled to dictate the sentence type.
Based on this information, players create a sentence that conforms to those rules.
Each element on the dice is assigned a point value, and gameplay difficulty can be adjusted by modifying the winning score amount, the dice used, verb decks used, game rules and procedures, and more. For example, the verbs are categorized as “common” or “less common,” as well as regular or irregular, and you can decide which pack or packs of verbs to use in any given round of the game. This game requires players to think about all the ways time, pronoun, and sentence type can impact the verb.
Even though the difficulty can be lowered somewhat, I recommend it for older players. It is also a very affordable game. Because of the creative challenge the game is actually fun and offers many possibilities for variations and managing student progress.
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