Browsing Tag

Kids

Why I Love Using Boom Cards in the Classroom

Boom Cards are interactive, self-checking, digital cards that are highly engaging. Find out the many reasons why I love using these cards in the classroom here!

In recent years, digital learning tools have gained immense popularity in classrooms around the world. While there are many different options to choose from, one of my absolute favorites has become Boom Cards. Hosted on the Boomâ„¢ Learning Platform, these cards are interactive, self-paced activities that can be accessed on various devices, providing a range of benefits for teachers and learners. While I could go on and on about the various reasons I love using these digital cards, I’m going to highlight a few of my main reasons here:

1. Interactive Learning Experience:

One of the primary advantages of Boom Cards is their interactive nature. They offer a dynamic and hands-on learning experience that actively engages students. With features like drag-and-drop, clickable elements, audio features and instant feedback, Boom Cards encourage active participation and enable learners to grasp concepts more effectively. Furthermore, the game-like nature of many of the cards makes the learning experience fun and engaging for students. They often don’t realize just how much they are learning.

2. Immediate Feedback and Assessment:

Timely feedback is crucial for student growth and improvement. However, in classes with 25-30+ students, it can be challenging for teachers to provide immediate feedback on a consistent basis. This is especially true for elementary school teachers who are teaching a variety of subjects throughout the day. Boom Cards provide instant feedback, allowing students to receive reinforcement or corrective guidance immediately after completing an activity. This prompt feedback helps students identify and rectify errors, fostering a self-directed learning approach.

3. Teacher Data and Insights

The Boomâ„¢ Learning platform offers data tracking features. While Boom Cards can be assigned using a free account, the features offered with the very reasonably priced Premium account is well worth the cost. Educators can access detailed reports and analytics, gaining valuable insights into student performance, progress, and areas that require further attention. As a teacher, you can monitor student progress, track their performance, and identify areas where they may need additional support. One of the features I love about Boom Cards is that not only can I see what questions student got incorrect, but I can actually see what their response was. This data can inform your instructional decisions and help you provide targeted interventions. The page below gives just a small snapshot of some of the data you can access.

4. Personalized and Differentiated Instruction:

Every student has unique learning needs and abilities. Boom Cards allow you to easily differentiate instruction based on the needs of your students. You can create or find decks that target specific skills or concepts, enabling you to provide personalized learning experiences for each student or group of students. Teachers can assign Boom Cards based on student progress, ensuring that each learner receives appropriate content and support. This can be especially helpful if you are already breaking students into groups for centers or learning rotations. Boom Cards allow teachers to differentiate instruction without having to copy, cut, and laminate all the time!

5. Engaging and Motivating

Boom Cards are designed to be visually appealing and captivating, incorporating interactive elements, colorful graphics, and gamified features. By leveraging these elements, educators can create a vibrant learning environment that motivates students to actively participate and stay focused. Since I often use these as a rotation in centers or for independent practice, it’s important to utilize activities that keep students engaged – and Boom Cards do just that!

6. Accessibility and Flexibility

Digital Boom Cards can be accessed from various devices, including computers, tablets, and smartphones. This accessibility allows students to engage with the content both in the classroom and at home, promoting continuity in their learning experiences. Additionally, the digital nature of Boom Cards allows to students to repeat activities if needed or move ahead if they grasp the content quickly, enabling students to learn at their own pace. This flexibility empowers educators to create seamless learning experiences and accommodate diverse instructional needs.

7. Time-Saving Resource for Educators

While there’s certainly still a need for paper and pencil activities, these digital cards are a huge time-saver for teachers! Teacher prep is quick and easy! Just download the deck, assign it to your class or individual student, and you’re ready for a fun, engaging activity! There’s zero copying, cutting, laminating, or grading! These cards can be played over and over again, won’t get lost, and your students get instant-feedback! The BoomTM Learning platform provides a user-friendly interface for creating your own decks as well. You can customize content, add images, and embed audio to create engaging activities tailored to your classroom needs. Educators can also share decks they’ve created with colleagues, fostering collaboration and resource-sharing within the teaching community.

As you can see, the benefits of Boom Cards in education are evident. From their interactive nature and personalized instruction to their flexibility and immediate feedback, these are a must-try for any classroom.

If you’re interested in giving Boom Cards a try, click on the link below to grab your FREE set of multiply by 5 Boom Cards!

If you’re further interested in Boom Card TM resources, check out some of my activities below:

Multiplication Rockstars Self-Checking Cards

Division Rockstars Self-Checking Cards

Apple CVC Words Digital Cards

States and Capitals Digital Cards

Back to School, Freebies, Teaching, Technology, Upper Elementary

Back to School Teacher Favorites Survey

Know exactly what to get your child’s teacher with this easy to use, editable My Teacher’s Favorite Things Questionnaire!

Know exactly what to get your child's teacher with this easy to use Teacher Favorite Questionnaire. This FREE survey will help you know all about their favorite thing so you know just what to get them for teacher gifts. It especially comes in handy with Back to School, holidays, and Teacher Appreciation week. AND, it's editable, so you can customize it just for your child's teacher! #teacherappreciation #teachergifts #teacherfavorites

For the first time since becoming a parent, both of my kids will be going to school this year! Since I understand how much time, energy, effort, and money go into teaching, I was eager to bless these teachers who were now spending 6 hours of the day with my babies.

While I love all of the mugs that students have lovingly given me over the years, I was eager to get these wonderful teachers something they really wanted. And selfishly, I didn’t want to buy something that was just going to end up going to waste or sitting around never being used.

So, I created this Teacher Favorites Survey.

Know exactly what to get your child's teacher with this easy to use Teacher Favorite Questionnaire. This FREE survey will help you know all about their favorite thing so you know just what to get them for teacher gifts. It especially comes in handy with Back to School, holidays, and Teacher Appreciation week. AND, it's editable, so you can customize it just for your child's teacher! #teacherappreciation #teachergifts #teacherfavorites

It asks about their favorite drinks, foods, shops, and general preferences, so I’d know just what to get them if I happened to be running by Starbucks in the morning and wanted to grab one for my kids’ teachers as well.

I created a pre-filled template if you simply want to print and go (just be sure you write your child’s name at the beginning of the paragraph so the teacher knows where to return it.

I also created an editable version so that you can include local restaurants, shops, etc. The editable version also comes in handy if you have a male teacher and want to ask them about things that tend to be more popular with guys.

Know exactly what to get your child's teacher with this easy to use Teacher Favorite Questionnaire. This FREE survey will help you know all about their favorite thing so you know just what to get them for teacher gifts. It especially comes in handy with Back to School, holidays, and Teacher Appreciation week. AND, it's editable, so you can customize it just for your child's teacher! #teacherappreciation #teachergifts #teacherfavorites

My boys’ teachers were shocked and absolutely thrilled to receive this wish list. One of them even said she felt like it was Christmas!

I’m eager to use these to know exactly how to bless these amazing teachers, and I hope you grab a copy too!

Just click on the button below to access this freebie!

Back to School, Family, Parenting, Teaching

October Centers

It’s October, and that means it’s time for all things Pumpkin!

While I absolutely love summer, by the time October hits, I’m ready for some cooler weather and the beautiful colors of this season. It’s also when I finally get to break out my October Math and Literacy Centers. My kindergarten students just love these activities, and because of that I’m super excited to offer you these Pumpkin Rhyming Cards for FREE. You can grab them at the bottom of this post!

Have fun practicing rhyming skills with these FREE pumpkin rhyming cards. Use them to play a matching game, in a sensory bin, as a fun way to find partners, and more! It's a perfect October literacy center activity for preschool or kindergarten. #pumpkinfreebie #rhymingcards #pumpkinactivities

 

There are so many fun ways to use these cards. In fact, the FREE download includes a list of fun ideas.

Have fun practicing rhyming skills with these FREE pumpkin rhyming cards. Use them to play a matching game, in a sensory bin, as a fun way to find partners, and more! It's a perfect October literacy center activity for preschool or kindergarten. #pumpkinfreebie #rhymingcards #pumpkinactivities

 

 

If you’re looking for other fun pumpkin activities, be sure to check out my October Pumpkin Centers.

Help your pre-K, kindergarten, and 1st grade students engage in Math and Literacy activities with these October themed printables. Work on beginning sounds, word families, non-standard measurement, sums of 10, and more! These centers and worksheets are perfect for math and literacy centers, small groups, and more!!

Here’s a glimpse of the few of the activities you’ll find inside.

Once we’re in October, we’ve spent a good amount of time working with letters and their sounds. While some students have mastered them, others are still working on it, and reviewing capital and lowercase letters is beneficial for all of them! These candy corn letter mats help students match the capital and lowercase letters, as well as pictures that begin with the letter sound. We’ve used it working with just a few letters at a time, as well as working with the whole alphabet. To give you fair warning, if you’re doing the entire alphabet, be sure to give your students plenty of space!

These candy corn alphabet puzzles are a great way to review capital and lowercase letters. Help your pre-K, kindergarten, and 1st grade students engage in Math and Literacy activities with these October themed printables. Work on beginning sounds, word families, non-standard measurement, sums of 10, and more! These centers and worksheets are perfect for math and literacy centers, small groups, and more!!

 

During the past few weeks, we’ve also been working on blending those letter sounds to build CVC words. And my students just love this Pumpkin Vine Word Family Center. The students match the picture on the pumpkin with the vine that has that word family label. While my students love that this is so interactive, I love that I can differentiate it easily. For some students I’ll say the name of the picture, and then they place it (and we only use 2 vines). Other students place all of the pumpkins on the different vines independently, and still others, place them on the vines and record the words on the recording sheet on their own! The students love it, and their learning so much!

These pumpkin vine word families are a fun and festive way to review CVC words. Help your pre-K, kindergarten, and 1st grade students engage in Math and Literacy activities with these October themed printables. Work on beginning sounds, word families, non-standard measurement, sums of 10, and more! These centers and worksheets are perfect for math and literacy centers, small groups, and more!!

 

We’ve also got some fun math activities.

My students love using these pumpkin counting cards. They count the number of seeds in the pumpkin, then count (and draw) on to reach the total. When you laminate these cards, kids can use them over and over!

Practice counting on with these pumpkin seed counting cards Help your pre-K, kindergarten, and 1st grade students engage in Math and Literacy activities with these October themed printables. Work on beginning sounds, word families, non-standard measurement, sums of 10, and more! These centers and worksheets are perfect for math and literacy centers, small groups, and more!!

And of course, we’ve got to have some puzzles. These pumpkin number puzzles help students match different representations of numbers. And….there’s so many ways to differentiate this activity! For students who are just beginning to recognize numbers, you could just give them 2-piece puzzles. For example, the pumpkin seed ten frames and the number. Other students may be ready for the three-part puzzle pictured below, which also includes base ten blocks. And, if you’ve got students who are really ready for a challenge, there’s also a blank puzzle piece where they can draw their own representation of that number!

These pumpkin number puzzles are a fun way to practice recognizing different representations of numbers. Help your pre-K, kindergarten, and 1st grade students engage in Math and Literacy activities with these October themed printables. Work on beginning sounds, word families, non-standard measurement, sums of 10, and more! These centers and worksheets are perfect for math and literacy centers, small groups, and more!!

And one of our all-time favorite activities this time of year is our candy corn measuring. Students use pieces of candy corn (or the candy corn rulers that are included) to measure different fall pictures. This is definitely a favorite math center activity – especially if I let them eat of couple of pieces of candy corn once they are finished.

Have fun practicing non-standard measurement with this candy corn measurement center! Help your pre-K, kindergarten, and 1st grade students engage in Math and Literacy activities with these October themed printables. Work on beginning sounds, word families, non-standard measurement, sums of 10, and more! These centers and worksheets are perfect for math and literacy centers, small groups, and more!!

 

There are even more activities included in this October center pack, so be sure to hop over to my Teachers Pay Teachers Store HERE to check it out!

And don’t forget to grab your free Pumpkin Rhyming Cards by clicking on the FREE button below:

Have fun practicing rhyming skills with these FREE pumpkin rhyming cards. Use them to play a matching game, in a sensory bin, as a fun way to find partners, and more! It's a perfect October literacy center activity for preschool or kindergarten. #pumpkinfreebie #rhymingcards #pumpkinactivities

 

 

First Grade, Holidays, Kindergarten, Preschool, Teaching