Internet Math Help

I find that review time for math concepts is a hard time. It is difficult to review in away that the students' interest will be perked and they will actually involve themselves in the review. One thing I have done for math review is to use the website IXL with the projector. I have the students grab a small whiteboard and marker put them into teams. I find the appropriate concept on the website, and we go through the review as a competition. Everyone has to write the answer to each question on his/her individual whiteboard. This helps me to see which students are still struggling. The students don't really get tired of reviewing this way.
Sometimes I will add a little something else to the review like having the team that had all members with the correct answer first gets to shoot baskets with the Nerf basketball to earn extra points. There are so many things that can be done to add interest into what could otherwise be a boring math review.
The URL for the IXL website is: http://www.ixl.com/math/
I hope it helps.

Help in Management

I do a baseball theme in my classroom. I love baseball, and I love using that theme because it lends to great discussions throughout the year about being a team and helping each other out at all times. One of my favorite things to do with my class that has helped a lot with management is to hold a class meeting once a week. I have a can in my room for compliments and a can for concerns. During the week the students notice good things their classmates are doing and put that information into the compliment can. If things happen that they are concerned about, they put those into the concern can. This really helps diminish the number of "tattles" during the week. At our class meeting each week, we go through all the compliments (which I then send home with the students) and concerns. It gives us a chance to discuss together the things that are going well in class and the things that need "tweaking." I love the feeling of togetherness this brings.
I then give a prompt to the class such as, "The best things about school is..." The students (who are sitting on the floor in a circle) pass around a talking ball. Only the student with the ball in his/her hand is allowed to talk. This is a chance for each student to express him/herself without any chance of repercussion. I have learned so much from my students through doing this.
Class meeting is one thing we do in our class that only takes about 20 minutes a week but that makes such a difference to the feeling of community in our class.

Chocolate Fractions

A great way to teach fractions is to teach with Hershey's chocolate bars. I like to have the students break their chocolate bars apart and make fractions with the pieces. There are 12 sections in each bar, so it is also a great way to illustrate to the students that the greater the denominator the smaller the piece.
When it comes time to talk about equivalent fractions, I give the students brown paper with a "Hershey's Bar" copied on it. They are given a large piece of white construction paper on which they are to glue pieces of "chocolate" and show equivalent fractions.
The students love this lesson, and it can be used for so many different aspects of fractions.