March Madness Fun

Math, Reading March 12, 2018

So a little bit of background info about me. I used to be a huge Phoenix Suns fan. I was such a big fan that my room back in AZ was decked out in basketball and Phoenix Suns decor. This is also where the name Team J’s 2nd Grade Fun came from. My husband is also a basketball coach. So – basketball is very important in our household and this is always a fun time of year with all of the March Madness excitement. Today I want to show you a few ways you can bring some of this excitement into your classroom.

Classroom Decor:

My awesome room moms last year decorated my classroom with all kind of March Madness goodies. I know they found some of these items on Amazon and some at the party stores around town.

Math:

The room decor also carried on outside to my hallway bulletin board. I decided to have students solve a math word problem – basketball themed – on an actual basketball cut-out that would be attached to the bulletin board. To differentiate, I had different types of problems (addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division) with varying degrees of difficulty. I let the students pick which problem they wanted to solve. It turned out amazing!

I also created a task card version of these story problems and they are in my TPT Store. The product is called Basketball Bonanza Story Problems.

Reading:

This year I am also doing a Tournament of Books March Madness Challenge with my students. Last week was Reading Week, which fit in perfectly with this activity! I found the bracket board online and picked out the picture books myself. I tried to pick books that had similar features, characters, or storylines to go against each other in the first round. For example – Chicks and Salsa and The Big Chickens. I also tried to pick books that were unfamiliar to my kids. This past week we finished up the Sweet 16 Round. I would read both books going against each other to my kids and then they would vote. The winner moves on to the Elite 8 Round.