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March Madness Activities for Upper Elementary and Middle School

March Madness Activities for Upper Elementary and Middle School

Plan a March to remember with these March Madness activities for upper elementary!

March Madness is a fun time of the year, and the basketball aficionados are in their element this time of year.

Whether you love basketball or not, there are many ways to add a March Madness spark into your upper elementary classroom during the month of March.

Let’s explore how you can incorporate the excitement of the college basketball playoff brackets into your classroom fun!

Reading March Madness Activities for Upper Elementary

  • March Madness Reading Challenge – create a bracket with picture books. Read to students each day and have them vote on their favorite. Then, move the images of the books through the bracket just like teams move through the bracket during March Madness.
  • Assign the Basketball passage with a mystery picture from the March Close Read set. This Basketball passage includes 3 different levels to make differentiation easy! This activity also includes reading comprehension practice, which will be highly valuable as the class moves toward national testing time.

Writing March Madness Activities for Upper Elementary

  • A Story About a Ball: Write a creative story from the perspective of a basketball used in a March Madness game. Students can describe the journey from being made in a factory to the thrill of being used by the best players in the country. They may even research how basketballs are made and include details in their story.
  • A Fantasy Story: Write a fantasy story about a magical basketball that grants wishes to whoever makes the game-winning shot. Describe how a player discovers the ball’s powers and the adventures that follow. Consider giving every student the same story starter for this writing assignment. Then, once the player discovers the ball’s powers, see how each student makes the story their own.
  • An Underdog Story: Write a short story about a fictional underdog team’s journey to pull off a huge upset in the March Madness tournament. Consider having students research some of the biggest upsets in tournament history.
  • A Mystery Story: Create a mystery story set during the March Madness tournament. Something unusual happens involving the teams, players, or the trophy. Write a story about how a group of students becomes detectives to solve the mystery.

Grammar March Madness Activities

  • Take whatever grammar skills you are working on to create basketball-themed centers. See if there are ways to incorporate basketball activities (like shooting paper into the trashcan or putting different rules on a basketball that students pass around) into the types of centers or stations you have already planned.
  • Basketball Punctuation Challenge: Write a paragraph about a basketball game with missing punctuation marks (commas, periods, question marks, etc.). Have students add the correct punctuation to make the passage clear and grammatically correct. You could even take the basketball passage from the March Close Reads with Mystery Pictures as the source material for this activity.
  • Basketball Grammar Relay: Divide the class into teams. Write each team name on the board, give them a team magnet, and then draw 5-8 dashes after their name. At the end, draw a basket or basketball. Each team works together to answer grammar questions related to basketball. If they answer correctly, they advance toward the “basket” or ball on the board (by moving the magnet across the dashes). Once they get to the end, they get to shoot an actual basketball for points. Once they shoot, they go back to the beginning and work towards another shot. 

Math March Madness Activities

  • Use any set of math task cards with a basketball hoop. Students flip cards and answer on whiteboards or paper. If correct, they get a point and also get to shoot ONE TIME for a bonus point. Another option is to do the activity in groups where they all answer at their seats and take turns sending a group member up to shoot if correct. If you want more fun activities you can do with task cards, check out the ideas in this blog post!
  • Tournament Statistics: Analyze and graph real March Madness statistics such as team scores, player stats, and winning percentages.
  • Track Player Stats: Give each student a player or group of players they need to track throughout the tournament. Give them time in class to pull up the players’ stats and record them. Ask students to find a fun way to display their players’ stats throughout the tournament.

Science March Madness Activities

  • Physics of Basketball: Explore the science behind basketball by studying concepts like projectile motion, force, and friction in the context of shooting hoops.
  • Basketball and Heart Rate: Explore the connection between physical activity (like playing basketball) and heart rate. Students can measure their heart rates before, during, and after physical activity to understand the impact on cardiovascular health.
  • Ball Bounce Experiments: Investigate how different types of basketballs (e.g., rubber, leather) and inflation levels affect the height of a bounce. Students can conduct experiments, record data, and analyze the results to draw conclusions about elasticity and energy transfer.

History/Social Studies March Madness Activities

  • History of Basketball: Begin with an overview of the history of basketball. Discuss its origins, including Dr. James Naismith’s invention of the game in 1891 in Springfield, Massachusetts. Explore how the game has evolved since its creation.
  • The Olympics and Basketball: Trace the history of basketball in the Olympics, including when it was introduced as an Olympic sport (1936) and how international competition has shaped the game’s development.
  • Research the basketball teams currently playing in the tournament. Research the history of the teams and coaches playing and present the details to the class.

Art March Madness Activities for Upper Elementary

  • Complete a basketball-themed art project to accompany the writing prompts
  • Basketball Art: Ask students to create art projects using actual basketballs. They can use the balls as the canvas or the tool for applying paint. They can even cut the basketball up. Give them free rein to make something new when they combine a basketball and art together.
  • Basketball Collages: Provide magazines, newspapers, and printed images related to basketball. Students can cut out basketball-related pictures and words to create collages representing their love for the sport.
  • Basketball Jersey Design: Encourage students to design their own basketball jerseys. They can sketch their jersey ideas and then use markers, fabric paint, or fabric scraps to bring their designs to life on a blank T-shirt template.
  • Basketball Trading Cards: Ask students to design their own basketball trading cards featuring themselves or their classmates as basketball players. They can include statistics, achievements, and artistic representations of the player.
March Madness Activities for Upper Elementary and Middle School

March Madness is a fun and exciting time of the year for many of our students. Even the ones who don’t normally watch basketball games may find themselves caring a little more about what is going on. One of the most fun parts of March Madness is in the unexpected upsets and chaos that can happen during the tournament. As you plan out some March Madness activities for upper elementary students, consider adding in some movement if you can. Activities are always more fun if you can add in a ball or even a hoop!

Hopefully, you’ll try out a few of the ideas on this list with your upper elementary students as you fully embrace the chaotic March Madness season!

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