Always encouraging my students to write in more concise sentences, I find it helpful to show them various ways to combine sentences while maintaining clarity.  One way to do this is by using participle phrases.  Many of the pre-made worksheets I find combine present and past participles into one exercise, and my students, many of whom are ELL, find this confusing and overwhelming.  I like to teach them about present participles first, as they are easy and regular. I show them how participles can not only be used in verb phrases, but also as modifiers, either as adjectives or participles phrases.

Get the PowerPoint and  accompanying participle foldable for interactive notebooks here!