March Book Madness
Happy March! I usually find there is so much to look forward to this month: spring, Women’s History Month, spring break (at my school at least), more sun, and MARCH BOOK MADNESS! March Book Madness is exactly what it sounds like. It is March Madness, but for books! There are 3 categories: picture books, middle grade books, and young adult books. Each gets its own bracket and anyone can vote on the website for each round. They start with 16 books (“Sweet 16”) and have “games” between two books and slowly go through rounds until we reach the championship.
When I taught 5th grade, we followed the middle grade bracket, and in 3rd we follow the picture book bracket. It is so much fun and gets students excited about reading in so many ways. Often, students who are resistant to trying out a new genre are happy to expand their reading horizons when they get to vote on books. Also, it encourages social reading habits and joy around reading. Students love to explain why you should vote for a certain book and often get into passionate debates about which book(s) should win. So much critical thinking about comparing literature is fun and also essential practice for being a lifelong, thoughtful reader.
We have collaborated with younger classes in the past. One year when we had Kindergarten reading buddies (we haven’t been able to reinstate this due to the pandemic), we introduced March Book Madness (MBM) altogether and buddies had the option to read MBM books when they read together. We’ve also worked with 1st grade and shared our predictions and books. We usually start by explaining the contest, looking at the map of participants on the website and adding a pin for our school. Students love that this is an international activity. We always take time to go over what a bracket is and how it works. There are usually a few March (basketball) Madness fans who are happy to share their knowledge!
Last year, we gave our students their own copies of the bracket so they could make their own predictions or follow along as they wished. They loved having their own copies and took each round of voting very seriously. We also used MBM as an opportunity to review genres of books as we worked together to figure out what genre each book fit into and explain why. Some students even asked to write book reviews to include in the book or to share when voting came around again.
The wonderful thing about MBM is that it can be as big or small of a deal as you want! If you can’t buy the books you can get them from the library or just watch video read alouds of them and put up photos of the covers if you want a display. Our former school librarian would make a MBM bulletin board recreating the bracket and students loved seeing it in the hall and sharing what was happening with other classes.
This year (as always), the books look wonderful. There are many I already like under picture books, but some that I am excited to discover. MBM always ends up being an opportunity for me to genuinely model and share my love of books and constant quest for new books I love to my students. They love hearing about how I am torn and can’t decide what book to vote for and sometimes even suggest ways to help me make up my mind. Everything about this activity makes reading (even more) fun and exciting. If you are interested in participating, 1st round voting is open today (March 2nd) and closes on March 8th at 7PM. We usually vote as a class, but students could also vote individually. Happy reading!