They're young children; they haven't learned to follow yet, ARE cave children still I like The Byzantine's good cop/bad cop scenario and, related, was going to ask, if the co-teacher is so good at discipline (better than you allegedly) then how come they ever misbehave again?

Often some children have to be shown, bodily; they aren't very good at words and their meanings yet; think about it, they don't read/write, many, if you had them driving a car, wouldn't stop at the Stop sign :-) Is the Stop sign not a good/direct instruction?

I don't know how many years you have been teaching but I'm sure the first 5-20 years are very educational for the teacher as well! You have never had to instruct/lead a group of children yet, how should you be able to without having practiced? You don't expect the children to know how to do something before you teach them do you? You are learning too, give yourself a break. It's like parenting; how to "teach" is not the same as how to "lead". You were taught lessons in school about teaching but not how to emotionally lead the children. I think children respond well to sound; maybe you can clap your hands before you make an announcement or use a triangle or bells to signal story time?

I would think about leaders you enjoy following and see if you can figure out how they make you feel like following? If it's lunch time, get everyone's attention by calling out, "Who wants lunch now, raise your hand!" That will get all the children close to being on the same page, paying attention to what is going on around them and that it's lunchtime? Whether they raise their hand or not won't be important to you, just their looking up or seeing their friends stopping their play and hinting to those not paying attention that they should is what you're looking for. Then you can give the next instruction ("everyone to the lunch table") or deal with the next "problem" (the kid that wants to keep playing :-) There will always be some children marching to their own drummer or defiant or just not able to be on the same page as anyone. It's not "wrong" to jolly children along to get them going in the same direction as you want them to; think of young ducklings following their mother?