"Present & Past Tenses: Another Attempt"

After ten years of teaching for the same school, I moved to a different one this year. I am very happy with the change and my only struggle at this point is to adjust from teaching three blocks of 85 minutes to five periods of 50.  I am still trying to figure out how to use TPRS and CI without rushing, and to provide the right amoun of repetitions within that limited time frame. However, things are going great and I am extremely optimistic. I have more collaboration than I ever had, which makes me very happy.

This year I have set-up two professional goals for myself:
1) Do A LOT of Conversation with the actors (to practice other verb forms), and
2) To introduce past tenses right away, from the beginning levels.

For the first goal, I found it is easier to say as I point to the answer: "class, if I say" George, quieres tacos?"what am I asking?" (students answer). "Great! Now, if George responds "sí, quiero tacos ", what is he answering?" (class responds). "Great! Now, let's do it!" And then I proceed to directly ask the actor. Yes, it is pure modeling! This reduces the actor's anxiety, which ultimately made ME uncomfortable and anxious as well ... so in the past I tried to avoid this interaction as much as possible.  Before, I just pointed at the answers for the actor to see, and gave him the answers orally if needed. But modeling WITH THE ENTIRE GROUP'S PARTICIPATION made a gigantic difference. It is going smoother!
  

For my goal # 2 I got a great idea (again!) when I read Cynthia Hitz's post about  Class Stories Folders . I Decided to adopt her strategy and so far I have 3 stories for each class. When we are creating stories in class I use both, present and past tenses using CI with lots of comprehension checks and pop-up grammar. However, it gets messy and in an effort to alleviate That, today I decided to type both versions (present and past tenses) underlining the target structures for each. It is very Important to keep a limited amount of target structures, as usual. You can see an example below.  I am hoping this will help students make connections quicker, and better organize their thoughts. I cannot wait for that "natural order of acquisition" to take place. What are your strategies to mix tenses in class?