How do you handle prayer time in Sunday school?

I teach 4th/5th and I prefer to start with prayer to set the tone and clear our minds. If I think it's going to take too much time to cover each request individually, we share them as a group, and I cover all of them in one prayer (Lord, you know all of our concerns, both spoken and unspoken, etc.).

Prayer may be the best teaching moment of the whole class.   If you think you are squeezing prayer in, that will send a subliminal message about the importance of prayer.  So I would suggest that prayer is as much of a priority as anything, and therefore the rest of the class can fit around the prayer.  Don't squeeze in the prayer;  squeeze in the rest.

Thanks for the advice, Mary & John! Sounds like starting right off with prayer would be the best plan. Maybe I'll ask them to fill out a prayer request card as they walk in the door and place it in a bowl. Then we could draw the cards and pray for each other before we move into the story...