Action Verbs — Answer Key
Part A: Fill in the Blank
Write the missing word or number on each line.
1. The cat slept on the warm blanket all afternoon. (past of sleep)
Sleep is an irregular verb, so its past tense is slept instead of sleeped. The ee sound changes to e when we move it to the past.
2. In She pulls the wagon down the hill, the verb is pulls.
Pulls tells what she does with the wagon—using her arms to drag it along. Wagon and hill are both nouns, not actions.
3. The frog leaps from one lily pad to another.
Frogs use their strong back legs to jump far, and a big jump like that is called a leap. Leaps fits perfectly for moving from one lily pad to another.
4. In He built a sandcastle at the beach, the verb is built.
Built is the past tense of build and tells the action he did with the sand. Build is irregular, so it changes to built instead of builded.
5. Every morning the rooster wakes very early.
Roosters are famous for waking up at sunrise, so wakes matches. The -s ending is needed because rooster is a singular subject doing the action.
6. In The children clapped after the show, the verb is clapped.
Clapped means to hit your hands together to show you liked something. The p is doubled before adding -ed to keep the short a sound.
7. She closed the door quietly behind her. (past of close)
Since close already ends in e, we just add -d to make it past tense. Closed shows that the shutting of the door already happened.
8. In They splash in the puddles, the verb is splash.
Splash is the action of stomping in water so it flies around. They is the subject and puddles are the place, but splash is what they are doing.
9. The puppy wags its tail when it is happy.
Wagging is the quick side-to-side movement a happy dog makes with its tail. Puppy is a singular subject, so we add -s to make wags.
Part B: Matching
Match each item on the left to the correct answer on the right.
1. Match each item to its correct answer.
swim
→ in a pool
in a bed
bake
→ in a kitchen
in a pool
read
→ at a library
in a kitchen
sleep
→ in a bed
at a library
Each action verb fits the place where people usually do it: swimming happens in water, baking needs an oven, reading is quiet at the library, and beds are made for sleeping.