Volunteer Day

I volunteered today at the Science Resource Center. I was in charge of having the kids act out high tide and low tide in a saltwater marsh. The way I'd been trained to do it, involved taking the smocks (with the pictures of the plant or animal each child was to play) off hangers, handing them out with the cards explaining what each one was to do, and then having each child read it out loud.
No. Because fully half of the allotted time was taken up by handing out costumes, and then hanging them back up at the end. So, when I got there, I took each costume and folded it and put it where the character was supposed to be, with the card on top. When each group arrived, i assigned parts to each child, they put the smocks on, I introduced each character, e.g. the curlew, the blue crab, and so on. We acted out what happened at low tide, and then what happened at high tide. Afterward, I had them fold their costume back up neatly, and then come and get the seek and find puzzle.
Several teachers commented on how much better it worked that way, and the kids ended up with several minutes to complete the puzzle in. The only thing was, when I showed up this morning, there were only about 14 puzzles, so I sent my helper to the office for more. She came back with enough for the morning's kids, so in the break between the morning and the afternoon sessions, I went back to the office and asked for more. "Well, they're not supposed to do them now, they're supposed to do them at home," quoth the lady. "Fine, but we still need enough for each child to have one." "I made 25," she said. "OK," I said, "I'm going to have 50 kids this afternoon."
The thing is, they set up these stations, and they knew we would have 8 sessions today with anywhere from 14 to 21 kids per sessions. Why wouly they not give us enough puzzles from the get-go?