The Brown Bag Teacher

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Book Madness: A Tournament of Books

 Well friends, I have never been so excited for a sporting event. In fact, this past weekend, I had to employ every bit of knowledge I have about the NCAA tournament (i.e. please read that as very little knowledge). 😉 Our newest book display is up and I’m SO excited to share it with you. Even with bullies, Pearl Harbor, Banned Books, and Black History, this book display is my absolute favorite!
My kids {love} sports and between rec teams and AAU teams, it seems they spend most of their afternoons and weekends involved in some type of athletic event. Additionally, being a Kentuckian, basketball is serious business. UK rules. No questions asked. This makes March Madness the perfect event to merge my kids’ love of basketball and our love of amazing books. Hence, I present to you affiliate links and freebies for setting-up a Book Madness: A Tournament of Books!

How Were the Books Picked

The first job was picking the Sweet 16. Over the course of the year, I have kept a tally of the books students have been reading and writing about, and chose the 16 books that were favorites in our grade. If multiple books in a series showed up on the list, I showcased the first book in the series. Below are a few of our ‘chosen’ books! 🙂 The full list includes Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, Dairy of a Wimpy Kid, I Funny, Football Genius, Stick Dog, The Witches, Number the Stars, Wonder, The One and Only Ivan, Stranded, I Survived, Nancy Drew Clue Crew, Bad Kitty, Bone, and Origami Yoda.

If you didn’t have a running list, you could also ask your school librarian to run a list of the books most commonly checked-out. This year (2016), our librarian is running a primary and an intermediate list for our school’s two book tournaments. She ran a list of the most-checked out books for primary and intermediate and we chose the books from that list!

How Do I Make the Bracket?

In terms of supplies, you’ll need black tape (or paper), book covers (I printed mine using photos online), scissors, a meter stick, and your tournament markers (Elite 8, Final 4, etc.). You may grab the updated 2016 tournament markers here for free from Teachers Pay Teachers!
Initially I planned on using strips of black paper as the black brackets, but I dreamed Saturday night of using tape (teachers dream of THE weirdest things!). During my Sunday morning trip to Walmart, I picked up a roll of black Gorilla Tape (1 in thick). In case your planning on making a bracket of your own, it took me about 30 feet of tape for my bracket!
Also, note that I did not measure the pieces of tape. I ignored my OCD tendencies and just eyed the pieces…I KNOW. It gave me the heebie-jeebies for the first 12 pieces of tape, but by the time I cut my 30th piece of tape, I got over it.

Here’s what the progression of bracket-making looked like. I made a fatal error around the Elite Eight (I made the distance between markers too small to host two books during the Sweet 16 round) that added an additional 20ish minutes to the experience -boo. Thankfully, it was an easy fix and kids don’t notice when one side of the bracket is a few inches shorter than the other. 😉

After finishing up the bracket with the Sweet 16 books in place, I needed to make the basketballs for the display header. Using my handy dandy Martha Stewart Circle Cutter(BEST invention ever), I cut 6.5 inch circles and drew basketball lines on them using black marker…yes, I did have to Google what a basketball looked like. 😉 Then, using the school’s dye-cut machine and a glue stick, I added the letters to the overlapping basketballs.

Who is Able To Vote?

As part of the voting, students are only allowed to participate in the vote if they’ve read the two books facing off. To make sure everyone has access to the books, I put any copies of the books or their accompanying series top of our shelves. As students finish these favorites, they’ll return them to the stands for others to read! I purchased extra copies of the books from Amazon and Scholastic. I also checked-out all the copies of the books from our school and public libraries. You might also send home a “Book Wishlist” and see if any of your families are willing to donate books.

When Do You Start Your Tournament?

As soon as our bracket went up at the end of February, my kids were PUMPED and were reading as fast as they could to make it through a *few* more books before our vote for the Elite 8!

I follow the NCAA tournaments dates. I set up a Google Survey so students can easily vote at the beginning of the school day.

How Do You Make Your Bracket?

In addition to voting for the best books of our school year, students will also fill out their own bracket predicting the winners. For every correct answer, students will receive a point. The 3 students with the most points will receive a free book from our next Scholastic order! 🙂 We’ll fill out our brackets with the start of the tournament this Friday!

What Does The Final Bracket Looks Like?

So, when all these parts come together it looks a little like this… 🙂 (Click here to see our 2014 Tournament Results)

 

 

Well friends, I am so excited! It was priceless to see my kids’ faces this morning and I loved the peering eyes of 3rd graders as they passed our door. The halls were definitely a buzz, and my kids are so excited to power read through the books they haven’t yet experienced!

Running a School-Wide Tournament

Since moving schools, our school has adopted a school-wide book tournament. It’s the perfect chance to build community around some of our favorite books and it was just plain FUN! We ran two brackets (that were set up in our cafeteria) – one for picture books and one for chapter books. Our school librarian ran a list of the most checked-out books of the year – picture and chapter books. Then, we eliminated series duplicates (always choosing Book 1) and then, pitted the books against one another. All 750 students and 50 staff participated in the picture book challenge. We had different staff members read all of the books through morning meetings, library times, and a few via YouTube! Then, our intermediate grades had lots of copies of the chapter books for students to read. Finally, when it came time to vote, we set up our voting windows for 2 days. Students could vote on a Google Form before our school-wide morning meeting, during reading class, and during library or computer lab.

Tournaments Around the Country

Seeing Book Madness in action around the country is awesome. I love sharing materials and see how teachers make them their own. Want to share your tournament, I’d love to hear from you. Share a picture on Instagram and tag me – @BrownBagTeacher.

So, what do you think? Do you incorporate March Madness into your classroom? Do you set-up your own book bracket? If so, I’d love to hear about it. 🙂 In the meantime, make sure to snag the materials for FREE so you can get started without a headache!

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Reader Interactions

Comments

    • Mrs. Saoud says

      Katie, I posted about the tournament on Primary Graffiti FB back in February with lots of primary books from our school wide tournament. Catherine, your intermediate tournament brackets look like a ton of fun! Your kids will be so excited!

      Reply

  4. Kelli says

    I've said it before and I'll say it again… I always look forward to your displays and this one is my FAVORITE!! I so badly want to be a student in your room. How fun is this!! Not to mention, the books you picked already resonate with your students because many of them have read them which must just increase their excitement even more. Bravo, Catherine. Bravo!

    Kelli
    Tales of a Teacher

    Reply

    • Kate says

      Kelli, Thank you SO much. Making these displays is one of my favorite things to do. 🙂 My kids have so adopted the reading lifestyle and it's been so fun to encourage that. And of course I'll keep you updated. I predict Wonder and Diary of a Wimpy Kid will be in the championship game, but I am really interested in what the kids choose! 🙂

      Reply

  6. paige buckwalter says

    I have my signs ready and I am getting to school early to put mine up! I can't wait to see how this goes for my little ones:) I plan to do a read aloud each day with the picture books, I am predicting that Pete the Cat or A David Shannon book will win. You are SO creative and I am so thankful to call you a friend, even if you root for the wrong team in Kentucky 😉 Go Cards!

    Reply

  7. Dawn S. says

    While it might be too late to start this now (we are on spring break this week), I am keeping this in mind for next year! This is a fantastic idea!

    Reply

  14. Mrs. Burgen says

    This is seriously the COOLEST IDEA EVER!!! I love that you showed how to make the board as well, because I am somewhat layout challenged. I have been searching for ideas to get my kinders more excited about books and discussing books etc. I think I have just found the solution. It will take us a little longer though…I think I will steal this AMAZING idea and set it up for after spring break to last until the end of the year. Thank you for sharing!!

    Reply

  16. Sarah says

    Catherine, I'm a new follower and I have to say, the timing seems meant to be. I've been searching around for inspiration for a March Madness book tournament and here you are posting about yours in my first feed from your blog. Anyway, thanks so much for the inspiration and the freebies. I'm having all the 4th and 5th graders at my school vote for "the BEST book I've read all year." From those I'll pick our field of 16 and get our display up in a library window next week. Thanks again!
    Sarah

    Reply

  18. Jamie Hoisman says

    Ah-maze-ing!! I love this! I've never done anything with March Madness before, but you have inspired me. I'll be working on this over my spring break next week. Thank you for posting such awesome pictures, too! And many thanks for the beautiful freebie!
    Jamie

    Reply

  21. Monica says

    What a wonderful idea! My 2nd grade team is adopting this using picture books that we have read in class and will read. It will be so much fun! Thanks for the great idea!

    Reply

  24. Sonya Yoder says

    I absolutely love this, and I just created my own tonight!! Thank you so much for all your help and sharing!! You are wonderful. I was wondering where you made your bracket? It looks awesome, but I chose some different books for ours. Thank you for your time and hard work! 🙂

    Reply

  26. Tara says

    My colleague and I stumbled upon your blog while looking for book brackets. We are putting our board up tomorrow. Thanks for the great tutorial. We have adapted for middle school. As I looked at your blog for the 100th time today, I realized you we are both teaching in the bluegrass state! Thanks again for the inspiration!

    Reply

  29. Style Closet to Classroom says

    I am just reading this post and I LOVE IT! I am "stealing" this idea for next year
    Also–I am obsessed with Stitch Fix and thanks to you…i just signed up!! How did I not know about that?! Ha that is why I love this blogging world 🙂 Thanks!

    Reply

  35. aoneill says

    This is amazing and I would love to incorporate this into my 4th grade classroom. I was wondering how you went about introducing this to students and if you had them write anything about each book once they read them. Also, did you have multiple copies of the books or were the kids responsible for finding them at libraries, etc. if they hadn't read them before? Thanks!

    Reply

  36. Kim says

    You are awesome! LOVE this idea! How did you have them vote? How did you confirm that the students have read the books? We are wanting to do this school wide and can't wait to get started!

    Reply

  38. Probinson.English says

    I am using this with my Senior English classes. We are going to have a Tournament of British Poetry. They might actually be motivated to read and analysis the poems with the March Madness concept. How do you use Survey Monkey for voting in a tournament? Is there a tutorial for this? I am only seeing how to survey with questions.

    Reply

  40. Holly Tyler says

    Ok, So I really want to do this with my firsties… And I was thinking I would do it as a class.. Pick small books on their level, read the books as a class and vote together. So read the two books in each bracket, vote on our favorite, then move on… I was wondering, when do you think we should start? When the actual basketball starts to keep in authentic?

    Reply

  42. Mrs. Full says

    This is the best idea – EVER! Thank you for sharing your materials. I created a book bracket to use with my fifth grade students. This bracket is creating so much fun in my reading class. I linked back to your blog to give credit to YOU for this creative, fun idea. If interested, you may check out my bracket pic A Full Classroom

    Reply

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