Ask the question "What is a helping verb?" Listen to any suggestions or add some suggestions of your own, before clicking on the smartboard to reveal the basic definition. This is a warm-up activity to get students thinking.
Present a selection of incomplete sentences on the smartboard along with a list of helping verbs. Each sentence should be missing a helping verb. Ask the students to drag a helping verb from the list into the sentence to create a complete sentence. Repeat until all the sentences are completed.
Once students have become familiar with some helping verbs, place some sentences that are missing a helping verb onto the smartboard. Some sentences should require a singular helping verb such as "was" and some should require a plural helping verb such as "were." Ask the students whether the verb should be singular or plural before getting them to drag the correct verb into the correct gap. Repeat this activity for different verbs such as "have" and "has" and "does" and "do."
Present a complete paragraph of text or a short story on the smartboard. Using the interactive tools available, ask students to pick out the helping verbs from the text.