Little demons.

It should be mandatory that four-year-old children visit an exorcist at least once before they reach their fifth year of life. I'm telling you, it might do some good.

Today I tried the last thing I knew to do after trying with no success to keep them semi-calm and myself semi-sane. I wore them out.

After they had their afternoon snack, I lined them all up across the room in rows, and we did stretching, and jumping jacks, and dancing, and singing, and clapping, and hopping, and spinning, and crawling, and whistling, and you name it. After an hour and several "I'm tired Ms. Smith!" comments, I sat down with them, broke them up into small groups, and set them at their work. One table got to color on very long strips of paper that I taped to the desk. Another group got building blocks, while yet another group got puzzles. I even had two children on the computer.

When I left at 4:30 by God they were quiet, and I was tired. Was it worth it? I'll ask my teaching assistant how they were this evening when I get to work tomorrow. It may have helped slightly, but I'm sure they got their second wind. I just hope it arrived in the car on their way home from school.