What's All The Fuss About BOOM Cards?
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Seriously, everywhere I look I see BOOM Cards here, BOOM Cards there. They’re all over Teachers Pay Teachers and my Pinterest feed is FLOODED with pins featuring these digital task cards. So, what’s all the fuss about these cards?
I recently started looking into them for use with my students and they’re actually pretty amazing! (Quick side note: I am NOT an affiliate seller for BOOM Learning, so let’s just get that part out of the way.) Here’s a brief overview: BOOM Cards are gamified digital task cards that students play on the Boom Learning website (www.boomlearning.com).
They’re interactive, fun, and highly engaging for online learning. They can be used on computers, tablets, and Smartboards. They are self-grading and teachers who pay a subscription to the Boom Learning site have data tracking available to them. Here’s another amazing thing about BOOM Cards: you can assign them to your students in places like Google Classroom, SeeSaw, Canvas, Schoology, Microsoft Teams, Class Dojo, Moodle, and Powerschool. Also, you can pretty much find BOOM Cards for any subject and any grade level.
Another little tidbit that’s helpful to know is that BOOM Cards are created in sets, called BOOM Decks (kind of like a deck of playing cards). So, when you purchase a set of BOOM Cards, you receive all the cards in the BOOM Deck. You can customize the setting on the BOOM Decks so that students can see the correct answer after submitting theirs. You can allow your students to play the decks multiple times as many of the decks are set to shuffle each time they are played!
Alright, after seeing the wonder that is Boom Learning, I decided to make some BOOM Cards for my students for the upcoming school year. I love using technology in the classroom, and with all the uncertainty with how teaching is going to look next year with the possibility of distance learning, I figured I should provide even more opportunities for my students to use technology to practice their skills. And, as always, the resources I make for my own classroom are available to other teachers in the hopes that my creations save someone a little time (and a lot less headache).
As I’ve been learning how to make my own BOOM Cards, I’ve been creating them solely in math. I’ll probably branch out later and try making them for other subjects, but for now, I’m keeping it simple. One skill I know I want to check my incoming 4th graders on is how well they know their multiplication facts. I have two different themed individual BOOM Decks for numbers 2-12. (Another side note: If you click on the images, it’ll take you straight to the BOOM Learning site with a preview of the first 4 cards in that deck!) Below is a little sampling of some of my Beach Themed Multiplication Facts BOOM Cards:
I also compiled the BOOM Cards into bundles according to their themes. I also created a MEGA BUNDLE so that teachers could have all of the Multiplication BOOM Cards I’ve created.
Some of my newer BOOM Cards create fun, real-life application of math concepts. In my Money Word Problems resource, students visit the "Toy Store." There are 2 different word problem activities for this deck. One activity has students learning about past purchases. They read the word problem and then determine if addition or subtraction is needed to solve the problem. Then students solve to find the answer. The other activity has students determining which items they can afford to purchase with a given amount of money.
In my Adding Like Fractions resource, students help out at the "Bakery!" They determine the fraction of each pie, then add the like fractions. In this BOOM Deck, they aren’t required to reduce a fraction to its simplest form.
In my Adding Money Amounts resource, students visit the "Surf Shop" to buy or rent beach items! They add up their total to determine the cost of the given items.
Check out my Subtracting Money Amounts resource. Here, students visit the "Candy Store" to buy sweet treats! They determine how much change they will receive from given money amounts. Then they subtract to find the difference.
Hopefully I did BOOM Cards justice by explaining just how amazing these resources are! Of course, I have more BOOM Cards in my Teachers Pay Teachers store that you can check out.
I’d love to hear about the BOOM Cards you’ve created for your students or ones you’ve found that you just can’t wait to use! Leave a comment below to tell me all about them!
