Tense is like a time machine for words. It tells us if something happened yesterday, is happening now, or will happen tomorrow. Think of it like a story. If you say, ‘I played with my toys,’ you’re telling a story about something that happened before. If you say, ‘I am playing with my toys,’ you’re telling a story about what you’re doing right now. And if you say, ‘I will play with my toys,’ you’re telling a story about what you plan to do later.

Imagine a traffic light. The red light is the past, where everything has already stopped and happened. The green light is the present, where everything is moving and happening right now. The yellow light is the future, where everything is about to happen. Tense helps us know when things are happening, just like traffic lights help cars know when to stop and go.

Think of tense as a calendar. The past is like the days that have already gone by, the present is today, and the future is all the days that are coming. Tense helps us put words in the right place on the calendar, so we know when things happen.