Using Boom Cards in Kindergarten

Using Boom Cards in kindergarten classrooms is a powerful tool we can use to engage all students. Most kindergarten students have some experience with iPads and technology long before they arrive in our kindergarten. Many, if not all, have some type of iPad or tablet at home. But there is a huge difference between using a screen to watch a video on YouTube or playing an angry bird game, and actually using a Boom Card in a kindergarten classrooms as a tool for learning.

You don’t need to be 1:1 to bring Boom cards into your classroom

Many kindergarten classes are the “last stop” for Chromebooks and other technology. The shiny, newly purchased, devices end up going to the upper grades. As the 4th and 5th graders upgrade to new Chromebooks their older devices make their way down to kindergarten. If you are lucky, you might get a few iPads and Chromebooks. There aren’t too many kindergarten or first-grade classes that receive the shiny new Chromebook cart. Don’t worry you don’t need it.

We have so much to learn and so much to manipulate in kindergarten and first grade that I’m totally fine having 4 or 5 Chromebooks and 4 or 5 iPads. We can accomplish a lot with a small amount of technology in our classrooms.

Here are my favorite ways to use Boom Cards with young students

An Extension of Guided Reading

This is my favorite way to use Boom Cards. I have a class of 22 kindergarten students and as I reflect back on my first few years teaching, my biggest struggle was what should everybody else be doing while I’m having reading groups. Most days I was by myself in the classroom and I just couldn’t manage to keep the whole group quiet and engaged while I had reading groups.  Boom Cards and Chromebooks are a huge piece of that puzzle.  I take 4 or 5 kids in a reading group, I give direct instruction on a specific skill then I send that group to my technology center. There they get extended practice on whatever skill I’ve been teaching.

Learning Centers

Using Boom Cards in your math and literacy centers makes learning come to life for your students. I use a variety of centers in my classroom. I have math centers, writing centers, word work centers, the list goes on and on. A consistent theme is Boom cards in my centers. Using an iPad or Chromebook in my academic centers has changed the way I teach and changed the level of independence for my students. Boom Cards offer a bonus feature of sound. My students can hear sight words as they build them, listen to a word problem being read to them, hear vocabulary words before they determine the beginning sound. The sound feature of Boom Cards has been a game changer for my students.

Boom cards take the data on rate and accuracy so I know what my students are doing even if I’m not sitting with them.

 Once you try Boom Cards you and your students will be hooked!  Check out all my Boom Decks

To see Boom Cards in action watch my video.