EnglishGrade 8ages 13โ14
๐ฒ is made / was built
Passive voice puts the thing that received the action first โ the soup, the room โ instead of the person who did it, and the small helper word that makes it work is the part that gets dropped.
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Download on the App StoreWhat your child learns
- The soup is made. The focus is the soup.
- Maya makes the soup. The focus is who did it.
- was built is the same idea in the past: The room was built.
- In Hebrew the passive is a one-word verb pattern. English needs two words, and the first one is easy to forget.
The mistake most kids make here
Treating The soup is made and Maya makes the soup as the same sentence.
Try one question
Focus on the soup, not who. Which is right?
The soup
- Maya makes the soup
- The soup is made
- The soup made
Answer
The soup is made โ That's it. The soup is made โ the soup at the centre, and nobody named.
How Maya teaches it
Your child tells Maya what they did in class. She teaches this topic at her desk, asks questions with tappable answers, and when the answer is wrong she explains why that answer was tempting instead of saying โtry againโ. She remembers what did not land and comes back to it.
Your child has it when they can: Say The soup is made, not only Maya makes.
How to help at home
Passive voice follows a fixed formula: a form of be (is/was) plus the verb's third form. The soup is made. The room was built. Both halves are needed, not just the second one.
The most common slip is dropping the helper word and keeping only the third form: 'the soup made' instead of 'the soup is made.' Read the sentence out loud together โ it usually sounds unfinished right before it sounds wrong.
Point out passive sentences already sitting around the house: a jar that says 'made in Italy,' a toy box that says 'assembled with care.' None of them name a person, and that's exactly the point of the passive โ the object is the news, not the maker.
In Hebrew the passive is built into the verb itself, one word carrying the whole idea โ ื ืื ื, ืืืืฉื. English needs two separate words for the same job, which is why the first one is easy to leave out.
A good sign they've got it: they can turn 'Maya makes the soup' into 'the soup is made,' and 'the workers built the room last year' into 'the room was built last year,' keeping the helper word both times.
Questions parents ask
- Why does my child drop the is or was in passive sentences?
- Hebrew's passive is one word with nothing extra to remember. English splits the same idea into two words, and the small helper word (is/was) is the part that gets left behind first.
- What's the difference between the cook makes the soup and the soup is made?
- They describe the same event but lead with different things. The first names who acted; the second names what received the action, and can leave the doer out entirely.
- When would someone actually choose the passive over the active version?
- When the doer is unknown, unimportant, or already obvious โ a jar labeled made in Portugal doesn't need to name a person, and the window was broken works even if nobody knows who broke it.
- How does Maya teach this?
- Maya gives a sentence like Maya makes the soup and asks the child to pick the version that puts the soup first instead of the person, so the shift becomes about what's in focus, not a rule to recite.
No card needed. The first lesson is free.
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