Meet Miss Hawthorne

A little bit about me:

Fun Facts about Miss Hawthorne: 


1. I am an Aggie Class of 2009! WHOOP!
2. I went to EVERY Longhorn softball camp as a child. (My parents are UT alums) 
3. This is my 3rd year teaching. I taught Pre-K and Kinder at Palm Elementary in Southeast Austin for the past 2 years. 
4. Pink is my favorite color. 
5. I love dinosaurs.
6. I have 2 dogs (Isabelle and Chester). 
7. I play slow-pitch softball for the city (I am currently on the injured players list due complete ACL reconstructive (knee) surgery in April. Should be back playing in November!) 
8. Both of my grandmothers, my mom, and 2 cousins are teachers. 
9. BBQ and TexMex (Chuy's) are my favorite foods! 
10. I was adopted. 
11. I played "teacher" as a child, and this career has been my passion since before I can remember. 
12. The Notebook and Remember the Titans are my favorite movies. 

Isabelle

Chester

My parents and I in NYC!

My brother, Brian, and I bowling!

What is my teaching philosophy? 


I am a strong believer that ALL kids can learn. It is my job as their teacher to facilitate their learning at their highest level. Not every child is learning on the same level, and that is OKAY! I am here to help students get to where they need to be and to push them to achieve MORE. How do I do this? I am constantly assessing your children in the classroom. These assessments come from informal observations and formals tests (TEMI (math), DRA and TPRI (reading)). I use these tools to determine what specific skills your child needs help mastering and those are the skills that we focus on. Once a skill is mastered, we move on to the next one. Now, as you know, I am only one person and there are 24 students in my classroom so how do I get to every student?!? I am magical. No, just kidding. I put the students into small groups of students who are needing help with skills similar to theirs. This allows me to isolate the skill and help the students master it to continue to build on their foundation of learning. Groups will constantly be changing based on skill levels. What if your child has mastered all of the 2nd grade skills that we are teaching? I push them to achieve higher at the more advanced level. Children do not learn if they are not challenged. We talk every day about the need to do our best, but also about the idea that no one is perfect. It is OKAY to make a mistake in my classroom. This is how we learn in society; this is how we learn in our classroom. If we make a mistake, we assess the problem, learn from it, and fix it. There is a lot of pressure these days on kids to be "perfect". This is just an unattainable goal. We set small goals in class and practice to master concepts independently. I am a very independent person myself, therefore my class runs independently. My students are responsible for their own learning in that they choose from a variety of concepts to work on (Daily 5) and are expected to work independently on specific concept building tasks to the best of their ability while I am working with a small group of students at my table. I always tell my students that every activity and handout has a purpose. I will never give work that is "busy work". I am hands on and involved in every child's learning process while they are in my classroom. I am very excited to watch your children grow academically (as well as socially and emotionally) over the course of the year!