How to Make Some Plans Now for a Collaborative March Madness Reading Challenge!

There are lots of good reasons to get your students involved in a March Madness Reading Challenge.  I'm giving you three because I want to keep this post readable!

Why take on March Madness Book Brackets?

It's that time of year when kids are getting restless and teachers are exhausted.  Am I right?  I always felt like the end of February and the beginning of March lasted about 100 days!  

Mixing things up a bit is a good thing to do at this time of year.  This is the kind of project where you watch your kids take off and you're pleasantly surprised!

😍 And you get the most amazing March Madness Books Bulletin Board from it!

You're giving students choices

You know that choice is important for kids.  And maybe you've been doing it since the beginning of the year and your kids have it down pat.  Or maybe not.  The good news is that there's enough structure in creating book brackets that your students will be engaged in the project(s) they need to do.

Students are competitive!

The energy in the room rises when kids are playing Gimkit, Kahoot, or Quizlet, right?  Well, that's true in March when they have to convince their classmates that their favorite book of the year should be everyone else's too! 

Look at the reading skills they're working on!

Okay, so there's a fourth reason.  Think of all the March Madness reading activities you could come up with.  Well, I did it for you.  To make their first pitch, students have to summarize.  Later, they need to visualize, and later still they need to become their character.  Talk about figuring out point of view!  And through it all, they work on their public speaking and persuasive skills.

• If you want to read a more detailed explanation of what I've done, you can read about how the March Madness Book Tournaments I held for my 6th graders worked here.

• If you'd like to try a tournament and don't have the time to create one yourself, my March Madness Book Tournament resource has everything you need for each week: lesson plans, graphic organizers, plus bulletin board letters for a display!
• Click on the picture below for more information!