3rd Grade Irregular Past Tense Verbs Worksheets

Irregular verbs form the past without -ed: teach/taught, catch/caught, fly/flew, swim/swam. Third graders expand their set beyond the everyday verbs and get faster at rejecting overregularized forms like "teached," matching the grade-3 standard for irregular verbs.

Free printable PDF, aligned to Common Core L.3.1.d. One skill per page, answer key on page two.

Every sheet is one of a kind and prints with a version code, so you can reprint the exact same one later. New version every click.

The kind of sentences you'll fix

Write the past tense of the verb in parentheses in the blank.

The old cat ______ (sit) on the warm windowsill all day yesterday.
Fixed: The old cat sat on the warm windowsill all day yesterday.
Last night, Amara ______ (see) a shooting star from her bedroom window.
Wei ______ (feel) proud after finishing the giant puzzle last night.

Every print draws a fresh mix of sentences at this level, so a make-up test or a second sibling gets a different sheet.

What's on each sheet

Fix it. Write the past tense of the verb in parentheses in the blank. 8 sentences to fix per page.
Choose the word. Circle the letter of the correct past tense verb. The word in parentheses is the verb to change. 10 questions per page.

Every version prints on US Letter or A4, with its answer key on the last page.

How to teach this

Group verbs by their change pattern rather than alphabetically: sing/sang, swim/swam, ring/rang in one session; catch/caught, teach/taught in another. The patterns give students something to hold on to. Keep the time cue habit: the word "yesterday" at the front of a sentence is the signal to reach for the past form.

Watch for: Adding -ed to everything (goed, runned) is a smart guess that happens to be wrong for these verbs. It means the child has learned the regular rule; now they need the exceptions. Some past forms need a helper: 'she has written', not 'she has wrote'. Our answer keys use the plain past on these sheets.

Common questions about irregular past tense verbs

Is there a trick for learning irregular verbs?: Grouping by pattern helps more than memorizing a list: sing/sang, ring/rang, swim/swam share a vowel change; catch/caught and teach/taught share another. Practice one family at a time, then mix them on a worksheet to check retention.
Why do the worksheets always include a time word like "yesterday"?: The time cue forces the past tense, so exactly one answer is correct. It also builds the real-life habit: when writing about the past, the verb has to change. Without the cue, several forms could be defensible and the practice gets mushy.

Related worksheets

Ready to print one?

One page, answer key included. A fresh version every time you click.

Aligned to Common Core L.3.1.d. Reviewed by the One More Sheet curriculum team. Content version 68, updated July 2026.