When I decided to start a blog, I didn’t envision this as my first post. But I thought I would give you a little insight as to how a bunch of stuff about basketball landed on a creativity blog and how March Madness has become an exciting time at our house.

We’ve always been sports fans here, especially the college games and every year my husband enters some kind of March Madness bracket pool and he would have me fill out a bracket and enter mine too. There is always some kind of sporting event on at my house, so my oldest son developed a love for college mascots pretty early on. Have you seen the ESPN commercial where the baby picks the stuffed animal mascot? If you don’t know what I’m talking about, click the link and see the third one, about 6-7 seconds in. Well I am married to a sports junkie and that has actually happened in my house! In fact it has happened more than once, for different sports, and prior to the commercial airing. Obviously my husband is not the only one that has ever thought of this! 😉

One year when my oldest son was little, we were watching the tournament and he got all excited because he saw the husky mascot for UConn. Huskies have always been his favorite animal. And then he proceeded to make his first tournament prediction, “huskies win!” As it turned out he was right. My husband thought it was cute, so he showed him mascot pictures and asked him which ones he liked best.  My son loved seeing all the mascots and apparently this activity made quite an impression. He kept asking to do it again! So when college football season started, he decided which teams he liked based on their mascots. By the time March Madness rolled around the next year, it was pretty obvious my husband had unknowingly created a monster. And so my family’s complete obsession with March Madness and our bracket competition was born. As you can probably guess, it didn’t take long for my older son to get his little brother involved when he came along.

Fast forward quite a few years, and this same kid asks every teacher at school who they think is going to win the tournament. He probably knows every Division I college mascot there is and even a few from Division II and III.  He fills out multiple bracket sheets, looks at the scenarios then keeps track of all of them. He has applied “brackets” to quite a few real world and theoretical scenarios over the years, and will follow any sport that offers an opportunity to fill one out. And much more, but you get the picture. This is one area where the sports fandom has elevated itself to a whole other level around here. And as it turns out, it has also offered my family an opportunity to do something together, something to get excited about and even an outlet for creativity. If your family likes to watch sporting events together, the March Madness tournament games are some of the best. You’ll see competitive games and stunning upsets every single year. Anything can happen.

I hope you enjoy some of these basketball crafts and activities with your kids. Leave a comment. I would love to hear what your family does during March Madness.