March Book Madness w/ FREE March Madness Bracket Template

It’s basketball tournament time coming soon. If you follow NCAA basketball, you know that there is a bracket. You can fill it out with your guesses of who will win or you can fill it out as teams play and win. That is fun and we really enjoy doing that as a family but I thought it would be fun to do it as a reading activity as well. So I created this fun Book Bracket Printable to make reading extra fun with  march book madness. Simply print pdf file with march madness bracket template and you are ready to help kids get excited about reading with kindergarten, first grade, 2nd grade, 3rd grade, 4th grad,e 5th grade, 6th grade, 7th grade, and 8th grade students.

March book madness

Reading is so incredibly important. We know this. Reading to children and having children read is important for their literacy skills in the future. It doesn’t totally matter WHAT they read, just that they are reading.Some children, though, have a hard time with it. Whether it is hard for them to actually read or if the complication is with staying focused or interested. This is not uncommon. But sometimes it can be easy to fix. If it is just an interest situation, encouraging children with a variety of reading activities can be super helpful. This March book madness activity is sure to make even reluctant readers excited to read with a fun basketball theme reading game! This which book is best activity is perfect for grade 1, grade 2, grade 3, grade 4, grade 5, grade 6, grade 7, and grade 8 students.

March madness bracket template

Start by scrolling to the bottom of the post, under the terms of use, and click on the text link that says >> _____ <<. The pdf file will open in a new window for you to save the freebie and print the template.

March madness bracket for kids

How does it work? There are 13 slots on this particular bracket. Four on each side, then two on each side, then one on each side then a winner box.

The way you start is read 8 books and put them on the outside lines. When you are finished, you take the top two on the left and choose a winner. Then take the bottom left two and choose a winner. Follow the same concept on the right side. The winners get written down on the column with two lines. Then those two compete with each other and the winner gets written on the single line. Until finally there is a final two and you pick the ultimate winner.

You can do this a couple ways, though. You can read them all once then fill out the bracket, just picking the winner. If you want, though, you can read them each time you need to choose a winner. This is ultimately helping them learn the books even better and really pick winners after reading them again. This may be difficult for older children who are reading longer chapter books, though. However you want to play, whatever works for you and your kids, is the way you should do it!

March madness book bracket

So not only will this help encourage children to read, because it is fun, but they will be reading too. This is helpful for strengthening vocabulary skills, reading out loud skills, comprehension, fluency, as well as finding meanings and interpreting text.

As fun and simple as this is, it is a great tool for all kids to use for encouraging reading.

Prepping this is super easy too. You can just print and use it with any writing utensil. You could also laminate the sheets and use them over and over. It doesn’t have to be basketball tournament season for you to use this sheet.

Another idea is to go to the library and get 8 books specifically for this activity.

Book Recommendations

First of all, whether you stock up on books at your local library, have a robust home library, or not. You can still order books and have them conveninetly shipped to your house from Amazon. Wondering what should I read – we’ve got tons of great book recommendations for you! Click on the list you want to read and then you can conveninetly order from Amazon or print a book list to take to the library.

Book bracket template

By using resources from my site you agree to the following:

• This is for personal use only (to use in a coop or classroom please purchase a classroom licensed edition here TPT store)
• This may NOT be sold, hosted, reproduced, or stored on any other site (including blog, Facebook, Dropbox, etc.)
• All materials provided are copyright protected. Please see Terms of Use.
• Graphics Purchased and used with permission from Scrappin Doodles #94836
• I offer free printables to bless my readers AND to provide for my family. Your frequent visits to my blog & support purchasing through affiliates links and ads keep the lights on so to speak. Thanks you!

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