Positivity is contagious!

The first sunday of the year, and my class doubled in size. Let's just say, there was A LOT of planning before church. Of the class of eight 5 year olds, there are 2-3 kids that are consistently well behaved. The other 5-6 are consistently difficult. So how did my partner and I attack this? We tried to be VERY positive. You would be amazed what happens when you praise kids. One of the kids I was MOST worried about today, THRIVED off the positive praise. In fact, we had NO issues with him AT ALL. That's never happened! What types of things do I say? I always try to notice what they are doing right and say, "Wow! I like the way Lucie is cleaning up! Thanks for cleaning up Lucie!". Or, "I like the way Daphne is having walking feet! Thanks for having walking feet Lucie!". This actually serves 2 purpopses. The first is to praise them for doing something right. The second is, because kids are competitive and they want to be noticed too, so typically kids will start doing whatever that child was doing to get noticed. It always amazes how fast the kids start doing what I want them to!