Adapting to a class

Today my class was more chaotic than last class I think. The older kids had a few individuals with too much energy. The Younger kids seemed to be tired. Also the room echoes a lot which makes complicated instructions difficult to correct. Well "Don't run" is pretty simple. But everyone was doing it. So I ended up making a good portion of our Kung Fu class a "sitting down" activity. I actually noticed that most martial arts seem to do this too. Where a bunch of kids are sitting and then you make each kid go one at a time.
There are benefits to this. You can actually correct some technique. But there are drawbacks too. Everyone else is just sitting there. Most of the kids will not watch the performer and learn. Well maybe the first couple of times.
I usually save the drawing on the lion heads for the end. But when I do this, all the kids actually listen really well. There are the coloring kids. Then a few kids want to do instruments. And then last week, some kids actually continued to do lion dance the entire time. Maybe I should just start with coloring the heads and then pull kids aside. I could break them into groups too. But ultimately  that leaves my attention off one group.
If one of my teacher helper students (that only seem slightly older than the students) can somehow learn the lion dance beats, or an approximation of it, I can have a group play instruments, a group learn lion dance, and a group do coloring, and then rotate.

The only reason why this would work is if the kids actually were getting tired, or bored with doing something. Ironically they are requesting more "kung fu in a circle" I guess they were having fun. but they weren't reacting to the change in the drum beat, and following it. which is why I had to stop them.

I guess they didn't necessarily do worse today. It might have been that my expectations were higher.

One kid mentioned while doing the animal moves. "But I know this already." I guess my problem is the same. I expect them to look like they know it already. But knowing something as an individual and being able to perform in as an individual or a group are to different things.

Some kids got excited for the "freestyle Kung Fu," I.e. picking whatever animals they wanted. Maybe I'll just introduce the Kung Fu and allow them to dance around freestyle. To tell the truth, it's what most of the boys are doing anyway. There are some girls that actually enjoy following directions though.