Welcome to Punahou! We hope you enjoy this virtual tour of our campus.
Welcome!
Omidyar K – 1 Neighborhood
Serving 300 students in grades K – 1, this state-of-the-art facility is comprised of six buildings, integrated with several outdoor learning and play spaces. The K – 1 Neighborhood features:
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12 classrooms, each with a 350 square-foot lanai.
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Large main gathering hall for a range of multi-class activities.
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Outdoor amphitheater.
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PE Pavilion and outdoor learning and play areas.
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Interactive sustainability features.
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Creative Learning Center with spaces for art and music, as well as housing administration, offices and a health room – all in Wilcox Hall.
To continue your tour, click the ”Next” button to move to the next stop. At each location, we hope you will take a moment to watch a short video from our faculty and staff.
K – 1 Drop-off and Pickup
Students are greeted by friendly faces each morning as they are helped out of their vehicles. This is the same location that kids are picked up from after school. Parents never need to exit their vehicle during drop-off or pickup.
Tip for parents: Having carseats placed on the left side of your vehicle makes the process safe, quick and efficient since children always enter and exit on the driver’s side at Omidyar!
To continue your tour, click the ”Next” button to move to the next stop. At each location, we hope you will take a moment to watch a short video from our faculty and staff.
Wilcox Hall Administrative Offices
Beloved Wilcox Hall, built in 1936, served as a student dormitory for decades. The boarding program at Punahou ended 1963, and after being newly remodeled in 1964, Wilcox Hall became home to Punahouʻs Kindergarten students.
In 2008, Wilcox Hall closed its doors for renovations, to become an arts and literacy creative learning center as part of the Omidyar K – 1 Neighborhood, which opened in the fall of 2010.
On the ground floor of this building, you'll also find the offices of our K – 1 Administrative Dean Elila Levinson and K – 1 Administrative Assistant Karen Dote.
To continue your tour, click the ”Next” button to move to the next stop. At each location, we hope you will take a moment to watch a short video from our faculty and staff.
K – 1 Classrooms
One unique aspect of the K – 1 experience at Punahou is that each pair of neighboring classrooms houses a kindergarten class and a first grade class. This intentional pairing of classrooms allows kindergarten students to get to know the first grade friends and teachers next door. Friendships between the children in these classes can grow over time, while students grow more comfortable with each other as they learn and play together during their time in the K – 1 Neighborhood.
To continue your tour, click the ”Next” button to move to the next stop. At each location, we hope you will take a moment to watch a short video from our faculty and staff.
The Rock | Upper Playground
Known fondly as “Upper Upper,” this is one of the most beloved spaces in the Omidyar Neighborhood. With a play structure, slides, a rock climbing wall, water pump and windmill, this truly is a wonderland for our students.
Tip for parents: When it rains in Mānoa, be prepared for muddy shoes or feet at pickup! Playing in the auwai on a rainy day is very popular – and encouraged – here at Omidyar.
To continue your tour, click the ”Next” button to move to the next stop. At each location, we hope you will take a moment to watch a short video from our faculty and staff.
Creative Learning Center | Music and Art
Here at Punahou, we are fortunate to provide unique, dedicated spaces for art, music and design technology classes. K – 1 students are escorted from their classrooms to these specialized spaces in Wilcox Hall at their scheduled meeting time. Specials classes like these are part of the curriculum, and often meet multiple times in a 6-day cycle calendar.
To continue your tour, click the ”Next” button to move to the next stop. At each location, we hope you will take a moment to watch a short video from our faculty and staff.
Tennis Courts
These six busy courts anchor a tennis program that serves 2,500 students each year, including Punahou’s ILH teams and co-curricular Tennis School students.
The courts feature covered spectator seating (center courts) and locker rooms, and house the Tennis School office.
To continue your tour, click the ”Next” button to move to the next stop. At each location, we hope you will take a moment to watch a short video from our faculty and staff.
Lower Playground
Students who arrive between 7 – 7:30 a.m. in the morning head directly to Lower Playground until it’s time to head to the classroom at 7:30 a.m. You may find that your child won't mind waking up early to head to school to get extra time on the playground before school starts!
This play area includes swings, climbing structures, balance beams, tunnels, building blocks and even bikes and a bike path! Students also come to Lower Playground during the day for supervised recess with their class.
To continue your tour, click the ”Next” button to move to the next stop. At each location, we hope you will take a moment to watch a short video from our faculty and staff.
Outdoor Education
The Outdoor Education Department has provided unique, age-appropriate, outdoor experiences for Punahou students for more than 50 years. Rooted in important core principles, the program has continued to evolve to meet the physical, emotional and curricular needs of students by connecting them firmly to the land and encouraging exploration.
The K – 8 Outdoor Education Path of Discovery is a carefully designed progression of meaningful experiences that take place in various locations on campus, around O‘ahu and on Hawai‘i Island. Along the way, students learn important skills to navigate each journey.
In addition to signature experiences that span from kindergarten through eighth grade, stewardship of Pu’u o Mānoa (Rocky Hill), the Animal Ambassador Program and Academy student mentorship program are other important branches of the curriculum.
To continue your tour, click the ”Next” button to move to the next stop. At each location, we hope you will take a moment to watch a short video from our faculty and staff.
Flanders Dance Pavilion
Flanders Dance Pavilion is home to the Punahou Dance School and features three separate studios where instructional dance classes are offered after school and on weekends.
Physical education classes for grades 2 – 5 are also held here.
The Dance Pavilion is just one of many buildings where your child may have co-curricular classes.
To continue your tour, click the ”Next” button to move to the next stop. At each location, we hope you will take a moment to watch a short video from our faculty and staff.
Junior School Learning Commons
In the Junior School Learning Commons, students have access to innovative spaces and resources – technological, creative and human – to transform their questions into meaningful work that addresses authentic
challenges and audiences. Students and teachers from different grades and disciplines have opportunities to gather and collaborate in purposeful learning.
While this space is primarily used by students in kindergarten – grade 8, all Punahou students have access to the library’s 60,000 book catalog, giving them access to hardcopy books, e-books and online resources.
To continue your tour, click the ”Next” button to move to the next stop. At each location, we hope you will take a moment to watch a short video from our faculty and staff.
Design Technology Labs
The Design Technology and Engineering department is dedicated to empowering students to take purposeful action. They teach students to look for the educational opportunities in taking on the challenges that they encounter, discover and create. Students learn more deeply when they are engaged in solving problems and working on challenges that inspire them.
In kindergarten – grade 5, Design Technology is one of the regular specials all students participate in.
To continue your tour, click the ”Next” button to move to the next stop. At each location, we hope you will take a moment to watch a short video from our faculty and staff.
Lily Pond (Kapunahou)
Punahou’s beautiful campus has provided an incredibly rich iconography for the School over the years, but perhaps no feature has been celebrated in metaphor, image and verse as much as the natural freshwater spring for which the School is named.
Referred to by various names – Ka Punahou, The New Spring, the Lily Pond – this unusual hydrological feature has been the historical, geographical and spiritual center of the School since its founding, and also what distinguished the lands of Kapunahou in old Hawai‘i.
To continue your tour, click the ”Next” button to move to the next stop. At each location, we hope you will take a moment to watch a short video from our faculty and staff.
Thurston Memorial Chapel
Thurston Memorial Chapel serves as the spiritual heart of Punahou. The 500-seat chapel is used for Chapel Program services, school performances and faculty and staff meetings. The chapel area also includes a “roundhouse” classroom, an open courtyard and chaplains’ offices.
In a normal year, special grade-wide Chapel presentations are held in this Chapel with parents in attendance. Students work with their teachers to prepare scripture readings, songs and other performances for these special events.
To continue your tour, click the ”Next” button to move to the next stop. At each location, we hope you will take a moment to watch a short video from our faculty and staff.
Waterhouse Pool
With a depth of at least 9 feet for its entire length, the Olympic-sized 50 meter by 25 yard Waterhouse Pool is the largest of any school in the state of Hawaiʻi (including the University of Hawaiʻi), at more than a million gallons.
Students begin swimming in PE in their second semester of third grade. Co-curricular swim classes are also offered in the afternoons and on weekends.
To continue your tour, click the ”Next” button to move to the next stop. At each location, we hope you will take a moment to watch a short video from our faculty and staff.
Hemmeter Fieldhouse (Gym)
Seating 1,800, Hemmeter Fieldhouse is designed for basketball, volleyball, general physical education and student assembly use. The 20,000 square foot gym is configurable for one main competition court, or up to three practice courts.
In a normal year, Junior School students present their in-person May Day program in this gym.
To continue your tour, click the ”Next” button to move to the next stop. At each location, we hope you will take a moment to watch a short video from our faculty and staff.
Health Center
Located in the Thurston P.E. Center, the campus Health Center is where students can go when they aren't feeling well during the school day. A team of nurses welcomes students and provides immediate care onsite. Depending on a child's symptoms, the Health Center may keep them supervised and cared for at this location until a parent or guardian can pick them up.
For students in kindergarten – grade 5, a nurse will meet them at their classroom if they are ill, and drive them back to the Health Center in a campus golf cart so they are supervised at all times.
The Health Center is a great resource if you have questions about school health forms, doctor wellness visits or medication needs for your student.
To continue your tour, click the ”Next” button to move to the next stop. At each location, we hope you will take a moment to watch a short video from our faculty and staff.
Dillingham Hall
Dillingham Hall is the theater space for Punahou School, housing a 640-seat auditorium with a 32' proscenium orchestra pit, as well as an intimate drama workshop, a scene shop, a costume shop with over 10,000 costumes, and offices for the theater program.
It is used by all grade levels for assemblies, as well as for dance and music programs. Co-curricular programs often use this performance venue for recitals.
Mahalo for taking our virtual tour! Click “back” or on any of the numbered stops on the map to revisit a specific location.