Bring tournament energy to your math practice! Students race the buzzer answering math facts — addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division — while your class runs its own March Madness bracket. Every student competes. Every round counts.
March Madness for Math is designed to be teacher-driven and fully adaptable. There is no single right way to run it. You decide which operation fits your current unit, how long each round lasts, how teams are formed, and how much of the month you want to dedicate to it. It can be a daily five-minute warm-up, a Friday reward activity, or the centerpiece of a full math fluency week — whatever serves your students best.
Start by opening the March Madness Bracket on your smartboard. Explain to students that just like the real college basketball tournament, teams will compete in head-to-head matchups and only the winners advance. Have students suggest or vote on team names — these can be student groups, table teams, rows, or any grouping that works for your classroom. Type the team names directly into the bracket on-screen. Once the bracket is seeded, it becomes your class scoreboard for the duration of the activity. Keep it visible and update it together after each round so students can see who advances.
When two teams are ready to compete, open the Buzzer Beater game that matches your current math focus. Each game has a timer that counts up by default, so you can let a round run as long as you like and use the elapsed time to compare performance. Teachers can also switch to countdown mode — a 30-second clock that ends with the buzzer — for a more high-energy, time-pressured round. Use whichever format fits the moment: count-up for a lower-stakes practice feel, countdown when you want the room on the edge of their seats. The team with the stronger result wins the matchup and advances in the bracket. Record the winner on the smartboard bracket so the class can see the tournament taking shape.
You have four games to work with — addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. How you sequence them is entirely up to you. Some teachers run the full tournament with a single operation that aligns with their current unit. Others use the month to progress through all four, starting with addition in the first week and working toward division by the end of March. You might also let different teams compete in different games, or mix operations in later rounds to increase the challenge. A few approaches that work well:
Each Buzzer Beater game includes a built-in grade level selector. Before play begins, choose the level that matches your students — the same game works for kindergarteners building sums within 5 and fifth graders working through multi-digit multiplication. You can also adjust difficulty between rounds if some matchups feel too easy or too hard. The grade selector is your control; use it however keeps the competition fair and the learning meaningful.
Open any game on your smartboard or share the link directly with students. Each game is self-contained — no login, no setup. Select the grade level inside the game and play.