The Arm Folding Evangelist

As I've said before, Robyn and I work with the 3 and 4 years olds at our church.  There is one particular girl who is super cute and super imaginative.  It is particularly difficult to help this girl stay quiet.  She is never defiant, she just imagines she is some place more awesome than sitting in her chair in Primary.

For example, one moment we are all sitting there quietly and then she suddenly remembers that she is a ballerina.

This is what she thinks she looks like

This is the reality.  

You'll notice the reality looks pretty similar to the fantasy, she's spinning.  She has a dress.  It's all basically the same, except that it has me chasing after her trying to stop the performance.  At one point I picked her up to place her back on her chair.  She pointed her feet and arched her back.  I'm pretty sure I just became her dancing partner and we were doing some sort of fancy lift.

So, after a few fancy lifts, I decided I should negotiate.  I explained to her that once we get to class (at this point we were in sharing time, with all of the other Primary classes) we have blocks available to play.  But only kids who are reverent get to play with the blocks.

Instantly, the ballerina was no more.  She sat down on her chair, folded her arms and gave me the "I'm so innocent" smile.  I gave her a thumbs up and she beamed with pride.  

Then she looked at the boy sitting next to her.  He was sitting quietly, but his arms weren't folded.  She had to put a stop to this great tragedy.  She quickly got out of her chair and joined him on his chair.  He looked at her with great dismay.  But she began evangelizing him.  She exhorted him to fold his arms so he could receive the promised reward of blocks in the next class.

How do you help the evangelist understand that the boy who always sits quietly is doing just fine?  We did another fancy lift and got her back to her chair.  She was relatively quiet the rest of the time.  

She received the great reward of blocks in class, and even got to play with a puppet.  She lived happily ever after, at least until her dad came to pick her up.  The idea that she had to go home brought tears to her eyes.  That's how fun Primary is.