Elementary

On Wednesday, March 18, all Oakwood students, preschool through high school seniors, powered up their devices and joined teachers and peers online for the first day of Oakwood Zoom classes. Our passionate faculty and support staff have worked furiously behind the scenes to transform and organize the current curriculum to facilitate an "Oakwood away from Oakwood" education. This time of unease has tested the resilience of our community. We have all responded quickly to ensure that our students are now back to learning from their teachers and engaging with their peers.

Oakwood's 4th, 5th, and 6th grade robotics team, Techie Pizza, continues to make progress in preparing for regional championships that will occur March 7th at the Northern California FIRST LEGO League Innovation Expo.

During the regular season, the team was challenged to identify a problem with a building or public space in their community and chose the problem of rental scooters ridden illegally on sidewalks. While scooters are environmentally friendly and convenient, pedestrians are being injured and even killed. The team employed an accelerometer and demonstrated that scooters operated on streets and sidewalks produced different vibration patterns.

Now, the team has modified an electric scooter to prototype and prove their solution. They adapted the scooter's drive electronics and used CAD to design an enclosure into which they have installed a small computer and sensors. They have written software to gather accelerometer data and are training machine learning models to automatically tell the difference between sidewalks and streets. They hope to produce software that can be installed onto existing rental scooters that will slow down and sound alarms to encourage users to avoid riding on the sidewalk.

Oakwood 4th and 5th grade students met after school yesterday to make signs and learn cheers (while enjoying a yummy snack) in preparation for the Boys' Varsity Basketball game last night. Our mascot Thunder even made an appearance for a special photo opp before the game. Thank you to the high school students and their advisors who came out to teach the students cheers and to the parents who donated food for their snack. And congrats to the Boys' Varsity Basketball team on their win!

In the spirit of compassionate citizenship, Oakwood third grade students learned about the "White Table" tradition of setting a small table with a white cloth and one chair in a common dining area to honor our veterans – especially MIAs and POWs – to remind us of their sacrifices and the impact on their families. They respectfully set a "white table" on campus to serve as a visual reminder to our student body. Students were invited to add the name and photo of a military family or friend who has served, or is presently serving, to their display. To learn more about this tradition and the meaning of each item on the table, you can visit the website of Margot Raven, author of children's book, America's White Table, which the third-grade students read in class.

Congratulations to Oakwood's three rookie FIRST LEGO League teams on their successful participation in Regional Qualifying Tournaments on November 9, 2019! Oakwood's after-school FIRST LEGO League team of 4th, 5th, and 6th graders, also known as Techie Pizza, participated in a qualifying tournament at Intel, won the Judges' Award, and were one of two teams invited to participate in the Northern California Innovation Expo. The two Oakwood Middle School teams (8th grade team Big Brain and 7th grade team Poison Oak) traveled to Amazon Labs in Sunnyvale, where Big Brain finished fourth overall in Robot Game performance and Poison Oak was selected to advance to the Regional Championship in Mountain View on December 15.

Each year Oakwood families participate in a uniform exchange program. This year our uniform exchange coordinator, Wendy Sue Kissa, sent many of the extra Oakwood uniforms to Honduras to share with some very deserving students. Thank you, Mrs. Kissa, for facilitating this admirable project!

An Oakwood Halloween tradition is the Elementary Pumpkin Book Report Projects. Students in 1st through 5th grade read a book of their choosing and then work on a book report, focusing on the traits of a character from their chosen book. The students also transform pumpkins to depict their characters, which they proudly display outside of their classrooms on Halloween. This project teaches students to be critical thinkers and effective communicators all under the guise of a fun Halloween activity.

The Oakwood community gathered on Monday, October 28 for the Annual Boo Bash. Attendees of all ages enjoyed carving pumpkins of various shapes and sizes into impressive works of art. Attendees happily ate their way through the chili cook-off entries and voted for their favorite. Little ones enjoyed carnival games, a cake walk, storytime, and even a spooky zone. Thank you to our amazing volunteers who made this spook-tastic night possible and congratulations to Ali Hernandez winner of 2018 chili cook-off!

Oakwood students participated in creative and campy themed days throughout spirit week, culminating with the annual Spirit Assembly on Friday, where they exhibited grade-level and school pride. The assembly brought together the entire campus, both lower school and upper school, as well as friends and family. Students participated in grade-level performances, each with their own individual style, and based on a theme chosen to represent the grade for this school year. It's incredible to watch Oakwood students supporting each other and showing Oakwood pride. It's great to be a Hawk!

Oakwood School celebrated the opening of the Gwendolyn Riches Liberal Arts Center on Monday, August 19, 2019, with a Ribbon Cutting Ceremony. Students, parents, faculty, staff, trustees, Morgan Hill Chamber of Commerce members, and other honored guests, gathered in the expanded quad outside the impressive new building. Click "Read More" for details!