Playing with Present Tenses – Snakes and Ladders

Kids of all ages have enjoyed playing Snakes and Ladders for generations and now you can use it in the classroom! The version below is guaranteed to add some excitement and fun to your grammar lesson teaching the difference between Present Simple and Present Continuous.

Feel free to download the game for your students and enjoy watching them practice verb tenses in a playful and competitive way.

How to Play

All you need to play the game are 2 to 4 players, a dice, and one marker for each player.

Players roll the dice, then move the designated number of spaces, between one and six.

Once they land on a space, they have to form a proper sentence in the correct verb tense with the words in that space and a pronoun respective to the number rolled (1 = I, 2 = you, 3 = he, 4 = she, 5 = we, 6 = they). Each field hints to the correct tense to be used, either Present Simple or Present Continuous.

Players who do not produce a correct sentence have to move their marker six spaces back.

Ladders: Whenever players land on a space at the bottom of a ladder, they will climb the ladder, which brings them to a space higher on the board.

Snakes: Whenever players land on a space that is at the tail end of a snake, they must slide down to the head of it, landing on a space closer to the beginning.

The winner is the player who gets to the last space on the board first.