The JOY of Boom Cards!

If you haven’t heard of Boom Cards™, I wanted to share with you what they are. This short read will fill you in on all the reasons why I have fallen in LOVE with them.  I stumbled upon Boom Learning℠ a few weeks ago while searching Pinterest for digital resources.  A quick visit to their website and I was very intrigued.  Boom Learning is a site that allows teachers and educators to create interactive resources, very similar to task cards but digital.

The DIGITAL interactive cards are so cool!!  They are a fun and engaging way to address a wide variety of concepts. The best part is students feel like they are playing a game.  The Boom Cards provide immediate auditory and visual feedback to students. PLUS Boom Cards are self-grading!  Yes, that’s right, once students have completed a Boom Card activity their scores are presented as a percent accuracy. This data provides an easy way to assess overall comprehension of the targeted skill.  This saves so much time. This information can be simply recorded. The scores can be added to your data or grade books for effortless progress monitoring.

 

Creating a Boom Learning Account:

Setting up an account with Boom Learning is very simple and FREE! A basic account gives your students the ability to play Boom Card decks via Fast Play for free.  However, paid levels of membership are available if you are interested in comprehensive reporting, data tracking, and progress monitoring.  If you’re not the creative type or don’t have the time to create your own cards no worries, there is a long list of Speech therapy and educator-created resources already on the site available to purchase.  I love to create resources so I decided to give it a try and I’ve created my very first Boom Card deck (whoop, whoop).

For classroom teachers, this particular lesson is not only an awesome way to work on vocabulary with your youngest scholars, it’s also a great differentiated activity. Whether you need to support your ESL/EFL students or for your students who may need a little extra reinforcement.  For all my SLPs, this lesson is perfect for your pediatric clients working on answering yes/no questions and vocabulary naming.  If you work with adult clients, this is also an interactive alternative to picture cards for targeting goals related to Aphasia, following a CVA or TBI.  As a parent, I use this lesson to reinforce vocabulary and put a twist on to it challenge my youngest son to formulate simple sentences using the target vocabulary words.

Where to use Boom Cards:

Boom Cards are compatible with computers, tablets, iPads, interactive whiteboards, and Smartphones.  They can be used during whole group instruction for a fun class activity. Boom Cards are also great for small group literacy centers and excellent for speech teletherapy remote sessions. For 1:1 digital classrooms, easily assign decks to your students for continued reinforcement. I really love the endless possibilities of Boom Cards and am currently working on a complete Boom Card series that can be used for a wide variety of targets. Please stay tuned for more fun engaging ways to motivate your students, children, and adult clients.

UPDATE: 09/03/2018

Now that I’ve been using Boom Cards with my students for over a year and created more than 40 decks I wanted to return here to provide you with an update on what I think.  I must say that my LOVE of Boom Card decks has not changed it has actually increased.  My students are so excited and thrilled to use Boom Cards that they have started requesting them by name.  One thing I know for sure is when my students are motivated, the outcomes are definitely better!

This past year has allowed me the opportunity to learn more about the interactive features of Boom Cards and my decks have evolved from answering Yes/No questions by pointing and clicking to MUCH MORE!  With my current decks, students are able to drag and drop, point and click, fill-in the blanks all while receiving immediate feedback, and yes, they are still SELF-GRADING.

The interactive nature of being able to manipulate pictures on the screen is very engaging for students. It creates the ability to address so many important targets.  An absolute favorite with my students is my Sequencing and Story Retell Series.  This series addresses sequencing, story retell, story elements, answering comprehension questions, vocabulary, predicting, literacy, auditory comprehension, reading comprehension, and more.  Each unit includes short original stories with 4 or 5 action sequences. Students will be able to arrange the action sequence in the correct order as they retell the stories.

Video Preview of Best-Selling Sequencing and Story Retell Boom Cards:

The video below is a short preview of the Evergreen Edition (Part 1) which is non-seasonal so it can be used all year long.

I currently have six lessons in this Sequencing and Story Retell Series. Four of the units in this series are seasonal and two are evergreen.  More to come in this extremely popular series very soon.

If you like the interactive nature of my Boom Cards, I have a wide variety of decks. Find the deck you need to address Following Directions, Phonemic Awareness, Basic Concepts, Articulation/Auditory Discrimination, Literacy, and MORE.  To get started with Boom Learning and to register for your free account click here.

Disclaimer: BVG SLP is not affiliated with nor endorsed by Boom Learning℠. Both Boom Learning℠ and Boom Cards™ are registered trademarks of Boom Learning, Inc. Logo and names used with permission.