Spanish Regular & Irregular Present Tense Verbs Practice

This post contains some affiliate links, which means that we make a small commission off items you purchase at no additional cost to you.

If you are working on present tense verbs with your Spanish classes, there is so much to cover! Regular verbs, irregular verbs, stem-changing verbs – oh my! Let’s look at practice activities you can use with Spanish present tense verbs for the various verb forms and categories of verbs you teach in the present tense!

Click here to save this post for later on Pinterest!

Parts of a Verb

When teaching verb conjugation, it’s helpful to have students identify parts of the verb such as the infinitive, the infinitive ending, and the root of the verb. When students can pull these apart it makes it easier to identify the different type of verb and different endings they will use. Take a look at the illustration below!

While students will use this for regular present tense conjugation, it is also helpful when they start working with stem-changing verbs (boot verbs) or reflexive verbs so they can identify those parts of the verb as they conjugate!

Regular Present Tense Conjugation

Let’s look at the endings for the regular verbs in the present tense.

Present Tense Endings:

AR Endings

o
as
a
amos
an

ER Endings

o
es
e
emos
en

IR Endings

o
es
e
imos
en

To conjugate a regular verb, your student will remove the infinitive endings (-AR, -ER, or -IR) and replace the infinitive endings with the present tense verb endings to agree with the subject pronouns. Many people prefer to introduce the -ar verb endings first, then introduce the regular -er and ir verb conjugations, then review all the forms together. Of course, if you like to teach the vosotros forms, you can include them here as well!

Check out more Spanish practice activities for just the regular present tense verbs here!

Near Future: Ir + a + Infinitive

The near future is almost always something I teach students very early on! Because it’s formed with a high frequency verb (ir) that they’ve already seen, along with the infinitive form of the verb, they’re not really seeing any new verbs. They tend to catch on very quickly with a good example and time with the weekend chat routine on Fridays in class!

New to weekend chat? Learn more about this routine in my blog post here.

See more Near Future: Ir a Infinitive activities here!

Stem-Changing Verbs

When teaching stem-changing verbs, or boot verbs, it’s helpful to go back to those parts of the verb. When students realize it’s the stem of the verb changing, it helps them make the spelling change before adding the appropriate ending. Since I show students the vosotros conjugations, but don’t require them to output or create the vosotros form, I find it helpful to show them a conjugation chart and draw out the “boot” to help them see where the stem-change occurs. Sometimes pointing out the conjugation patterns helps them stick!

See more Stem Changer Verbs activities here.

Reflexive Verbs

Teaching reflexive verbs can be tricky! When you add in that reflexive pronoun, students sometimes start to confuse them with subject pronouns, or even the ending of the verb. You can go back to those parts of the verb and help students find the main verb, underline the stem and the ending, then point out how the reflexive pronoun is added to the infinitive form. When they see it’s not really a new verb tense, they can work with regular present tense verb conjugation and add the reflexive pronoun back in to help them keep it separate from conjugating the end of the verb!

See more reflexive verbs activities here.

Irregular Yo Forms

When working with regular -ar, -er, -ir verbs, you might introduce the irregular yo forms. These are sometimes called “yo go” verbs, but there are more irregular yo form conjugations so I tend to not include that label. Instead, I just teach them as an irregular and show them the present tense yo conjugations as something that doesn’t follow the pattern.

Here are a few practice activities that focus on verbs with irregular present tense yo forms:

Spanish Regular & Irregular Present Tense Verbs Practice

Let’s look at some conjugation practices you can use with regular and irregular verbs in the present tense!

Free Blank Verb Conjugation Chart

The simplest option to practice is with a blank verb chart. Students can complete one or two sides with any verbs you give them. You can give them a bank of options to choose from, or fill in the infinitives of the different verbs yourself before making copies for your students. Students will write in the correct ending for each of the verb forms in the charts. To make it a game, put it on a timer and have them race to finish the conjugation tables. You can also use the blank worksheet for conjugation of Spanish verbs with the Mi Lápiz review game! The download link for this free pdf is in my freebie library for newsletter subscribers!

If you’re already a newsletter subscriber, here is the link to the Freebie Library.

Spanish Conjugation Games Printables

Maze game s have students answer a series of questions, but they are also trying to find their way to the end of the maze at the same time. This simple shift makes it into a game more than a worksheet and is a great option to add to your lesson plans for Spanish class. I most often use these worksheets as independent practice or fast finisher.

I have two options I like to use with my students. In the first version, students just find their way to the end by choosing the correct answer. However, you can also stretch this game for your Spanish students by having them go back through the maze and completing each of the boxes they didn’t use on the path with the correct verb conjugations. They each come with an answer key as well as a digital version. Sometimes I like to project the digital version on interactive whiteboards for a classroom starter, or to check work as a class practice!

Click here to check out my blog post with 10 ways to use maze games in class and grab a free version to try.

Spanish Regular & Irregular Present Tense Verbs Maze Games:

Color By Conjugation Worksheets

If you’re looking for a great resource for your sub plans, color by conjugation worksheets are a great fit! These printable one-page worksheet reviews verbs by having students color the different verb forms according the to key. It’s very similar to color by number, but they see the verb forms written out instead of numerals!

In each set, there are several different color by conjugation sheets included to practice the forms of the verb in the present tense. This is a great option for after a quiz, a calm review day, or with a sub! They’re a great general practice to keep on hand!

Spanish Regular & Irregular Present Tense Verbs Color by Conjugation Worksheets:

If you’re looking for a little seasonal fun, you might like these Day of the Dead worksheets to practice the Spanish verb forms in the present tense! This includes 6 different pages with the verb forms on fun calavera coloring sheets for each set.

Spanish Sudoku Puzzle

Are you familiar with sudoku? In this Spanish puzzle version, students fill in each row, column, and box with the different forms of the verb in the present tense. It’s a great way to reinforce conjugation of the verb ser as students wind up repeating the forms in their head as they work on the Spanish puzzle. This set of Spanish worksheets includes 4 puzzles for your students to review the endings.

Corre en Círculos

This is one of my favorite ways to take traditional Spanish verbs worksheets and give them a twist! It’s such a fun way to get your students up and moving around the room as they play this scavenger hunt style game. Students read the prompt on the bottom of the page, record their answer on a piece of paper, then move around the room to find the correct answer on the next sheet on the wall.

When using this game to review Spanish conjugations you can have the prompts be a fill in the blank style, or you can list a subject pronoun and infinitive for them to practice. Some students work as a two-person team, and some prefer to do this as an independent game as they work on their own conjugation skills. Either way is fun!

You can also do this with vocabulary and have students choose the correct verb for the sentence, then write the correct form of the verb, or have them choose between different tenses. One of my favorites has students choose between the subjunctive or indicative mood, then record the correct conjugation. There’s a lot of options!

Spanish Regular & Irregular Present Tense Verbs Corre en Círculos Games:

Click here to see 10 ways to play this game with your whole class!

Regular Spanish Verbs Present Tense Games

While you make like to use worksheets for independent work, it’s nice to let students practice and review during test prep in more ways! Check out these games to play with your students to review the specific conjugation rules you’re working on!

AR ER IR Verbs Game Boards

This is a great, low prep option for review! Print off the game board that you want students to use, then just make copies. Students roll a die to move their game piece, then roll for which subject pronoun they’ll conjugate for. If you’d like to add another layer, students can record their answer for the form of the verb on a whiteboard or sheet of paper to check for the right conjugation before they advance.

For example, if students roll a 3 and then a 1, they’ll move 3 spaces and answer with the first person form of the verb in the box they land on.

Check out the pre-made game boards here:

If you’re looking for a little seasonal fun, you might like these Navidad game boards to practice the Spanish verb forms in the present tense! This includes 12 different game boards for you to choose from including:

regular present tense ar verbs
regular present tense er/ir verbs
ser – includes adjectives and origin
tener – review numbers 1-99 as well as they work on tener + age

Download here!

Spoons

Spoons is a trading card game that can get super loud and (if I’m being honest) a little bit violent. The first person to collect all the cards they need races to grab a spoon, but there’s one less than the group needs – a bit like musical chairs! The last person to grab a spoon is out of the round, so things can get a bit intense as they race to grab. Play this one with verb forms and students grab each form of the verb until they have a whole set!

El Toro Conjugation Game

El Toro is a fast-paced verb trading game for a small group of students! You can use it to practice any set of verbs you’ve been working on with your students! I tend to pick the most common or most popular verbs in a given tense to work with. Click here to learn how to play. This is one of my students’ favorite fun activities!

Often once I’ve introduced both Spoons and El Toro I will let students choose between these 2 Spanish conjugation games because they use the same materials. Student choice is a great way to up engagement even more!

Click here to check out pre-made sets for this game!

Olla de Oro

Olla de Oro is one of my favorite review games to play with students. It’s a card game where they draw cards from the middle. If they get a gold card, they conjugate it. If they said the correct form they keep it. There are a few other “mischief” cards in the deck to keep the game interesting!

You can have them give the English meanings for the verbs as they conjugate, or you can just have them stay in the target language as they’re working.

Scoot

Scoot is a great way to take task cards and turn them into a game for your students! Take those task cards, add a rotating, timed, speed element and give them points. Tadah, game! My elementary teacher friend Shelly has a great post here explaining how to play.

Her examples are for math class, but the how to is great and thorough!

Check out task cards for regular present tense verbs here: