How a wordless picture book is helping my P5B students look deeper, wonder and shape their own inquiry
Ask a child what they learned at school today and you might get a shrug. Ask what they wondered about, and the answer can be very different.
At Haut-Lac International Bilingual School™, our primary school uses inquiry-based learning to help children ask good questions as well as find good answers. Here, Primary Coordinator Tamara Borge shows how that looks in her class of 10-year-olds. They began their first theme of the year with a picture book that has no words at all.
What is inquiry-based learning?
Inquiry-based learning starts with a question rather than an answer. Children look closely, wonder, ask their own questions and investigate to find out more. Teachers still teach knowledge and skills, but children see why those skills matter. It is how we teach at our international school in Switzerland, from preschool through primary.
How a wordless picture book gets children asking questions
What happens when we don’t give children the question we want them to answer?
What if, instead, we give them the time and space to find the question themselves?
This is something I have been exploring with my P5B students as we begin our first theme of the year. As their teacher, I know the concepts and knowledge I want us to encounter along the way. But that doesn’t mean I need to reveal the destination from the outset. Instead, I wanted to see what would happen if we began with something powerful enough to make them wonder.
Our starting point was Shaun Tan’s extraordinary wordless picture book, The Arrival. It tells the story of a man who leaves his family and travels to an unfamiliar new land. There is no narration or dialogue; everything we understand comes through Tan’s illustrations.
And there is a lot to understand.
Tan’s talent lies not only in what he shows, but in what he leaves unexplained. His strange creatures, invented alphabet, unfamiliar landscapes and powerful visual symbolism place the reader, in some ways, in the same position as the central character. We don’t fully understand this new world either.
This pushes the children beyond simply observing what they can see. They begin to ask what an image might symbolise, what happened before this moment, what a character might be feeling and, importantly, what Tan might be trying to make us understand.
Looking closely: how a silent gallery builds critical thinking
Through a silent gallery activity, my students moved around a series of images from the book, recording their thoughts and responding to those of their classmates. The silence was deliberate. There was no teacher explanation and no dominant voice in the discussion. They had time to look, look again and notice what somebody else had seen. Gradually, their thinking moved from observation towards deeper inference.
The questions our 10-year-olds asked
Then I asked just one question: What is Shaun Tan making you wonder about people who leave their homes and arrive somewhere new?
The questions that followed belonged to the students:
- Why might people make the choice to go without their family?
- How might people feel about going somewhere new?
- Why might they have had to risk it all?
- How might their family feel when they leave?
- How does it feel to be separated from your family?
Suddenly, we had somewhere to go. Not because I had presented the class with a list of inquiry questions, but because a powerful text had made them curious enough to ask their own.
From questions to inquiry: designing a perfect city
This is why big questions can be so powerful. They don’t replace knowledge; they give it purpose. A good inquiry question encourages children to look more closely, seek information, consider different perspectives and make connections. The answer cannot simply be copied from a page; it develops and becomes more sophisticated as their understanding grows.
Our inquiry continued with a challenge to design a perfect city. Initially, they focused on what a city needs: homes, schools, hospitals, transport, shops and green spaces.
But when they shared their cities, we noticed something else. Many had included parks, sports facilities, cafés, play areas and places to share hobbies and interests. These weren’t simply buildings and services, but places where people could meet, connect and belong.
That led us naturally to our first shared inquiry question: How can we create welcoming communities?
From there, we explored what helps people feel that they belong. We are now looking more closely at the people within a community: the roles they play, the contributions they make and how they help turn a collection of buildings into somewhere that feels like a community.
Where will that take us next?
I know where I hope it will take us.
Eventually, I want the students themselves to begin wondering what happens when all of these people, cultures, languages, experiences and perspectives come together in one place.
And perhaps then someone will ask the question we have been quietly heading towards all along: What makes a city cosmopolitan?
Why inquiry-based learning starts with wonder, not answers
There will always be things we need to teach explicitly. Children need knowledge, vocabulary and skills, and teachers have an important role in providing them. But learning does not always have to begin with an answer. It doesn’t even always have to begin with the teacher’s question.
Sometimes our role is to choose the right stimulus, create the right conditions and then give children enough space to wonder.
Because when a question genuinely belongs to the learner, finding the answer matters that little bit more.
What your child gains from inquiry-based learning
- Critical thinking: moving from “what can I see?” to “what might it mean?”
- Careful listening: reading classmates’ ideas before adding their own
- Curiosity with a purpose: asking questions that lead somewhere
- Independence: choosing which questions are worth exploring
All of these feed into the life skills and future skills we develop across the school.
Try it at home
Next time you share a book, film or news story, ask:
- What does this make you wonder?
- What do you think happened just before this moment?
- How might that person be feeling?
Then wait a little before you answer. The silence is doing useful work.
A child who learns to ask a good question keeps learning long after the lesson ends. That is what our primary teachers aim for, one picture book, one city and one big question at a time.
Would you like to see inquiry-based learning in action? Book a tour and meet the team.
By Tamara Borge
Primary Coordinator
P5 Teacher
*Class: P5B, age 10 (Grade 5 in the US, 7H in the Swiss system)
