Time Travel Grammar: Mastering Verb Tenses

Miacademy & MiaPrep Learning Channel

This engaging educational video takes students on a narrative adventure through the "Clockwork Labyrinth" to master the literary element of verb tenses. Guided by a narrator and her robot companion, Mia, viewers encounter "glitches" in time that can only be solved by correctly identifying and using past, present, and future tenses. The video breaks down how to recognize these tenses in text, looking for specific verb clues like "swirled" (past), "smiles" (present), and "will continue" (future). A key focus of the lesson is the importance of maintaining consistent verb tenses within narrative writing. The video demonstrates how mixing tenses can confuse readers and provides clear examples of how to edit and revise writing for consistency. Students are encouraged to practice this skill by fixing paragraphs where the tense shifts inappropriately, ensuring that the narrative flow remains logical and clear regardless of the genre or setting. The video is highly interactive, featuring pause-and-play moments where students are tasked with specific challenges. These include identifying tenses in sample paragraphs, correcting verb errors in descriptive sentences, and creatively writing their own sentences based on visual prompts. By gamifying grammar instruction through a maze-navigation storyline, this resource makes the abstract concept of verb conjugation concrete and enjoyable for upper elementary and middle school students.