Verbs are action words that describe what people, animals, or things are doing. There are two main tenses for verbs: present and past tense. The present tense describes actions that are habitual or always true, like "the sun rises" or "we sing." The past tense is used to talk about actions that were completed in the past, like "dinosaurs lived" or "he swam yesterday." Examples are provided for common verbs in both the present and past tense.