As many people know, March is more than just the third month on the calendar.

For students and teachers across the country, it’s the celebration of the written word, of the knowledge and emotions contained with the bound collection of ink and paper known as books.

For sports fans, March is a celebration of a different kind: of the excitement, drama, and, well, madness that comes from the collegiate basketball teams competing to become the last one standing, in the NCAA tournament.

Educators at Justus Gage Elementary are giving students a taste of both this month, as the school hosts its first ever March Madness Reading Competition. Borrowing from similar competitions held at Sister Lakes Elementary and other regional schools, classrooms in two different brackets, kindergarten through second grade and third grade through fifth grade, will compete to see which can consume the most amount of out-of-classroom reading over the next 31 days.

“Each kid has a little slip of paper they can use to keep track of the amount time they spend every night reading,” said Alison Yeo, a third-grade teacher at the school and one of the organizers for the competition. “They fill it out, have their parents sign it, then bring it every Friday. We’ll keep track of which class has the most amount of time throughout the competition.”

At the end of the month, the teachers from each top classrooms from the two brackets will face off in a special basketball shoot off, inside the school’s gym. The winners of that competition will give out one free book to each of their students, Yeo said.

“We told the teachers that if they didn’t feel up to the shoot-off they could have the gym or art teacher sub-in for them,” Yeo said. “No one said they would do that yet, so I think we’re all going to participate.”

The classroom with the most minutes overall will also be treated to an ice cream sundae party at the end of the competition, she said.

The students themselves seem fired up for the tournament, judging by their reactions during the kickoff assembly for the event on Friday, Yeo said. They will be able to see their progress throughout the month via a scoreboard located in one of the school’s hallways.

No matter the results at the end of month, every student will benefit from participating in the competition.

“We want kids to be lifelong readers,” Yeo said. “That’s why it’s important that we focus on getting kids to read outside of school.”