March Madness Tournaments

     

      

        A few years ago, I saw Miss 5th's idea for a March Madness book tournament and LOVED it! I decided to adapt her idea and use it in my 4th grade classroom as well! It has become a hit every year and one of our favorite things to look back on! In this post, I'll detail how I incorporate it in my classroom and I'll also link Miss 5th's pack about the tournament on Teachers Pay Teachers. 

        On the first day of March when students walk into my classroom, they'll hear "Are You Ready For This?!" playing with the lights off (Double Teamed vibes anyone?!). I'll have some fancy lights on and sometimes I'll bring in a basketball to dribble. We have to set the mood! This is what gets them bought in from the very beginning! Once their curiosity is peaked, and they're wondering what is going on, I introduce them to the March Madness Book Tournament! 

The Sweet 16

        Each student picks a book to enter into the tournament. This can be their favorite book, but doesn't have to be! The goal is to pick a book that is SO interesting, you'll convince others to read it through the tournament. So I give them two days to think about a book to read, and then they have to make a "book cover recommendation."  On the front, they'll decorate the cover of their book with the title. On the back, they need to write a recommendation- why would someone want to read this book? Again, the ultimate goal is to make others WANT to read the book.       

      At this point, I make a bracket on the board in our classroom (see picture). I play this tournament with two classes. Each class takes a side of the bracket. So when all the book cover recommendations are turned in, I enlist the help of an unbiased person (my dad usually- Thanks dad!) to pick the top 8 book covers in each class. We judge based on if the cover looks neat and had some effort put in, and if the recommendation on the back makes you WANT to read the book. The following day, we reveal the bracket with the top 8 in each class!

The Elite 8

        From here, every student writes a book report on their book. The book report talks about the characters, theme, a summary of the novel etc. On Friday afternoon, we read the top 8 book reports in each class and students vote for the top 4 best book reports to move on in each class. The following day, we reveal the new bracket!

The Final 4

        After the book reports, the top 4 books in each class participate in an "interview with the main character." The students come up with the interview questions, and on the day of the interview, they come dressed as their character and pretend to BE the character while I ask them the questions they came up with. From there, the students vote for the 2 best interviews in each class- students are looking for who has knowledge of their character, who was entertaining and prepared, etc. 

The Grand Finale

        After the interview, the top 4 comes down to the top 2- one student in each class. These 2 students create a book trailer for their book- almost like a movie preview! We watch both trailers and students vote on a winner for our March Madness Book Tournament!! The best part- the winner gets NO HOMEWORK FOR THE REST OF THE YEAR! I think this is a brilliant prize because: the school year is almost over anyway, the winner of the tournament is usually someone who will want to do their homework anyway, and the kids freak out over it! I tell them the prize in the very beginning so they work really hard to get it. 

        The whole month of March, this tournament helps us celebrate reading! We also get tons of new ideas for books to read from our classmates. Once a student is out of the tournament, they have the option to still complete the activities if they'd like to. But, everyone looks forward to each new round and voting for who moves on. 

        Miss 5th's pack about this on Teachers Pay Teachers (link here) outlines in more detail about how to arrange due dates, rubrics, worksheets, etc. 

March Madness iReady Tournament

        While the book tournament is going on, the math teacher wanted to get involved as well! We also host an iReady tournament. This is pretty simple and something we do on top of our daily day to day. Check out @Fantastically_fourth_grade's blog post here to read about what inspired us to start this. 

        We set up a bracket in the hallway and pair up each student against another. Each week in March, we run a report to see how many iReady lessons each student passed. For every lesson passed, the student earns a ticket, and gets to turn them in on Fridays for extra special prizes only during the month of March! The student who passed more lessons then their competitor in the bracket gets to move on, and the same process is followed each week. Even students who are "out" can still complete lessons for tickets during March to keep the motivation going. We only ask that each week at least one reading and one math lesson are completed. Then, they can do more of whichever one they prefer. 

        If your school doesn't use iReady, this can easily be adapted for another program like Zearn, MobyMax, etc. Feel free to make a copy of this parent letter to edit and send home if you're interested in getting started!

        We have a highlight all about these competitions on our Instagram page (link here) Let us know if you have any questions! We'd love to help you start a March Madness tournament in your classroom!