Boom Cards: How I use paperless, self-correcting task cards in my kindergarten classroom. Boom Cards are such a great way to work on essential skills with your students.
Last week my friend Jenn from Books & Bytes wrote an awesome post about Mystery Skype in Kindergarten, and it’s such a great way to incorporate more technology into the classroom. She has also turned me on to using Boom Cards with our kindergarten students.
If you don’t know what Boom Cards are, keep reading! They are such an easy way to work on skills in your classroom without much prep.
What are Boom Cards?
They are digital task cards that you can use on tablets or computers. There is nothing to print out. You just pick your deck, and you are ready to go.
Students get the deck (there are 2 different ways to do this- I will explain more in a moment) and they go through an easy to navigate set of cards to work on the selected skill. You don’t have to print anything out for them to work. They are paperless!
They are self-correcting, so students know right away if they got the question right or wrong.
How to use Boom Cards:
There are two different ways that you can use them:
1. Use the FastPlay option:
Pick a deck you would like to use from the store. Then get the Fast Pin for it (see picture below) from your library. Display the pin so that students can use it (I put it on a mini blackboard, but you could use anything).
All they have to do is type it in and it will bring them directly to the deck so that they can get started. I used this option the first time I used Boom Cards in our classroom. I wanted to see if our students liked using the app before I tried the next option.
2. Make a classroom:
If you want your students to have access to multiple decks and you want to track their progress and results, then you should make a classroom.
Every student will get their own username and password (you can customize these to make it easy for your students), then they will have a list of decks that they can play that you have assigned to them.
After using Boom Cards for one day, I made a classroom because my students loved it so much.
Make your own:
You can make your own decks, or you can purchase pre-made decks from the store. Boom Cards has some great tutorials to get you creating, and there are lots of free decks too.
Boom Cards has been a great addition to our kindergarten centers. We have been able to work on different skills using them, and our students love choosing their decks. If you want to try it out, I have a free deck available:
I have added a whole series of math Boom Cards to my store. It makes it easy to review math concepts with your students without having to prep or print anything:
More ways to use technology in the classroom
I love using our iPads in the classroom to work on a variety of skills. My Top 5 iPad Apps post outlines my favourite ways to use them.
Robots are another fun way to get students excited to learn through technology. Coding in Kindergarten looks at all the different robots I’ve used, and the Sphero Robotic Toy was so much fun to use.
If you want to know more about how this all works in my classroom, take a look at My Ultimate Guide to Kindergarten Centers. It answers my most asked questions about my classroom.
Have you used Boom Cards in your classroom? Are there other apps that I should be incorporating into our math and literacy centers? Let me know in the comments!
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