How To Teach The Past Simple -- Did You Catch The Ball?

*** Illustrations provided by artist Shaun Ryan.

A fun and easy game to help your students practice the basic past simple structures using short and long answers.
Instructions:

The “DID YOU CATCH THE BALL?” game.

You will need:
A teacher
2 or more students
An object that can be thrown such as a ball.

You can play the game once your students understand the basic concept of irregular past tense verbs (eat, ate; drink, drank; run, ran).

Tell them that it’s time to learn another irregular verb in the past simple: the verb to catch. Demonstrate the concept of catching something and/or translate it.

Write catch, caught at the top of the board.
Underneath it write the interrogative form, “Did you catch the ball?”
Also the affirmatives, “Yes, I did. I caught the ball.”
And the negatives, “No, I didn’t. I didn’t catch the ball.”

Now, throw the ball to a student.
Ask him, “Did you catch the ball?”
If he did, have him answer using both affirmative forms:
“Yes, I did. I caught the ball.”
Next, throw the ball to another student.
Ask her “Did you catch the ball?”
If she didn’t catch the ball, have her answer in the negative:
“No, I didn’t. I didn’t catch the ball.”

Continue the game until all your students have had a turn.