Okay, as a fellow teacher, my heart goes out to you. It's not easy with kids that have little discipline at home and feel that authority doesn't matter. There are various ways you can discipline children and it often takes a few years of teaching to perfect your methods. Here's my advice:
-Don't be nice, be strict. If someone misbehaves they get one warning and then time out.
-I teach PE so I know how important recess is to the kids. Here's my thoughts on that. Can you have them do an activity during that time that they don't like. For example, walking in a circle around a specific area away from each other and the rest of their classmates.
-Keep using the good behavior incentives. Stickers are also an excellent tool, especially for the little ones. They love stickers. You could have them earn a sticker each time they're good and then if they get a certain number of stickers, they get something special (such as a trip to the special treasure box.) You could also just give stickers for the kids that are caught being good
-I agree that parent contact can actually be helpful in some cases. There are parents that actually care and want their children to behave and do well in school. So, try contacting parents. It may help.
-Also, have students who are in time out during recess be away from each other, even if it's in a similar area. Like, instead of sitting at a table have them separated on the floor. You could have them write 2-3 sentences about why they are in timeout or an apology for what they did. This may also help.
-As a last resort, have the Assistant Principal involved (or whoever is the behavior administrator at your school) and have the student go see them, this often scares them enough that they don't want to misbehave. Usually the AP is excellent about working with you to help.
-Another idea is to have a sort of behavior contract with specific students who are misbehaving. If they do______________ then they get to have a certain privilege. This could work wonders with some students.
-There's also the possibility of sitting with your cooperating teacher and asking for tips/pointers/how she can help you gain more respect.
Hope this helps. Know that you're not the only one this happens to and that it will get better. It's also hard because it's coming up on the end of the year and all of the kids are crazy. Believe me, right now even the really awesome kids are antsy, they know summer is coming soon enough and can't help but be excited for it.
