March Madness is the head-to-head basketball games that take place starting mid-March through the very end of March (or beginning of April).
This year’s March Madness games run from March 13th – April 2nd. Your boys in Senior Primary especially will love even the mention and playing this March Madness singing time review game.
I asked my 11-year old for advice and ideas for making the perfect review game that blends reverence with fun and competition with reviewing the songs. This is what we came up with.
This game idea was inspired by the amazingly creative music leaders shared on the LDS Primary Music Leaders group. I borrowed the basic idea, and made it fit what works for me – complete with a printable!
March Madness Review Game
In the Basketball version of March Madness, there are 16 teams (aka songs) that compete in the challenge. For review purposes, I broke the songs down by verses and also decided to use a simpler 12-song singoff competition.
With 12 songs, you’ll sing through 21 verses which you may be able to complete in a single singing time, if you move quickly between the competitions and have everything ready so you don’t waste extra minutes here and there. Or, you can stretch this to be finished during the 2nd half of the following week.
With 16 March Madness singoff, you’ll definitely need 2 weeks to get through all of your singing competitions, as you’ll need to sing through 30 verses! I’ve provided copies of both versions here – so you can pick the one that will work best for you.
How to Play March Madness in Singing Time
- Fill in your song and verse for each line of the round 1 songs.
- Prepare some simple ways to divide the Primary room, some examples are:
- Boys vs Girls
- Right side of the room vs Left side of the room
- Odd Years Old (3, 5, 7, 9, 11) vs Even Years (6, 8, 10, 12)
- Prefers Ice Cream vs Prefers Cake
- Likes Art vs Likes Sports
- Announce a way you’ll be dividing the Primary. You can have the kids help you pick, if you have options ready. You can allow the kids to move to their new side of the room, or leave kids in their seats depending on if they need some movement.
Assign one side of the room one song and the other side of the room the second song.
- Give instructions that there are two ways to earn points towards “winning” the round.
- 1st: Singing so you can be heard and how well you know the words
- 2nd: Listening to the opposing team and being quiet and reverent when it’s not your turn to sing.
- After both sides have had a turn singing their assigned verse – announce the round winner. You can ask for the teacher or Primary presidency leaders for help in judging what side did the best both in singing during their turn and in reverence during the other teams turn.
- Write the winning song on the line to advance to the next round. Continue through all of the round 1 competitions before moving on to round 2, round 3, and the final round.
- You can optionally let the winning (or both) teams take a shot at a basketball hoop. I don’t plan to do this, as I think it might be a bit too rowdy.
One idea to calm the activity down, though, is to not make the basketball element part of the deciding factor, so it’s less competitive, and use bean bags, balled up paper, or a balloon and try to make a basket into a laundry basket or bin.
Printable March Madness Review Game
12-song March Madness Sing-off
16-song March Madness Sing-off
I created a list of my singing time songs that I wanted to use. You can print this song list printable and edit it to add your own songs.
Then, cut the list into strips and advance each song along the white board to help you easily set up the game. You can physically move the songs that won up to a central point on the chalkboard, or simply remove the losing song.
Take notes on the sing-off sheet of what songs move forward, so you can easily keep track of the next rounds and how far the Primary got. You can also use this sheet as a cheat sheet for taking notes on what songs the Primary seems to know, and which ones need more practice and work!
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