Developing ATL Skills in the IB PYP Early Years Slow Looking See Think Wonder

Slow Looking to Spark Inquiry: Using Look & Wonder Story Mats to Build ATL Skills in the PYP

One of my favourite parts of an inquiry is that moment when my students’ eyes widen and they lean forward, eager to share a question or idea that just popped into their minds. That’s when I know I’ve sparked genuine curiosity. Over the years, I’ve experimented with different provocations to tune into new units of inquiry, but one tool has really transformed the way my learners engage in those early stages: Look & Wonder Discussion Mats. What I didn’t anticipate at first was how powerfully they would support the IB PYP Approaches to Learning (ATL) skills - not just in the early years, but all the way through to upper primary.

Observations were superficial and questions were shallow. 

How to Use Look & Wonder Story Mats to Develop Observation, Thinking, and Communication Skills

I created these mats to help my students slow down, notice details, and wonder out loud. At first, their observations were superficial and their questions shallow as you can see in the photo above.  But through practice, the mats became a powerful tool for building essential research and thinking skills to strengthen inquiry. Here’s how you can use them:

• Start with first impressions

  • Present the image and invite students to share what they see.

  • Expect simple responses at first (e.g., “a baby turtle,” “it’s stuck,” “the turtle looks sad”).

• Guide deeper observation

  • Use prompts like “What else can you notice?” or “Look closely at the edges/corners/background.”

  • Provide tools such as magnifying glasses to slow students down and encourage attention to detail.

• Encourage storytelling from observations

  • Ask students to build a story based on the details they’ve noticed.

  • Facilitate sharing so they can build on one another’s ideas.

• Return to the original provocation

  • Revisit the first image after several rounds of practice.

  • Highlight how their observations are now more detailed and thoughtful.

• Support them in making conceptual inferences (e.g., Notice howe we have now made conceptual connections - impact, human influence, danger, consequences).

  Notice the bigger impact 

  • Recognise that these mats don’t just deepen observation but they also foster rich conversations and collaborative thinking.

  • They naturally align with and strengthen the IB PYP Approaches to Learning (ATL) skills across all age levels, from early years to upper primary.

In this post, I want to share with you:

• How these concept mats foster ATL skills across grade levels

• Why “slow looking” is so powerful for inquiry-based classrooms

• A few practical classroom strategies I’ve used to make these mats part of collaborative group work and tuning in to new inquiries

Slow Looking: An Entry Point for Wonder

Look & Wonder Story Mats and Concept Discussion Mats are some of my go-to tools for tuning into new inquiries. They’re essentially a slow looking activity designed to spark curiosity and deepen thinking with little kids but I’ve found they work beautifully with older students too. Instead of rushing through an image, students pause, take their time, and really notice the details. That’s when the magic happens: curiosity starts to bubble up. 🙂

Here’s what makes them so powerful:

• We can go deeper with SEE–THINK–WONDER routines to guide children’s noticing and questioning. (Read the blog here, for more ideas on that.)

• They help develop conceptual awareness in meaningful, age-appropriate ways. (Read more about developing conceptual thinkers here.)

• Students strengthen their observation skills through guided noticing.

• Wonder is invited naturally when exploring ideas through a conceptual lens.

• They work perfectly as a collaborative learning experience, giving every child a voice.

• They make an ideal provocation tool to launch a new unit of inquiry.

• And best of all—they’re high engagement mats that connect with every single IB PYP theme.

When I first started using them, I realised that slow looking was the spark my students needed to open up, start conversations and questioning, and lean into the inquiry.

In our fast-paced world, children are often used to scrolling, clicking, and moving quickly from one image to the next. “Slow looking” asks them to pause, observe deeply, and linger with a single idea or image. When I bring out the Look & Wonder Mats, the first instruction I give is simple:

“Let’s take a long, slow look before we speak.”

Students notice colors, patterns, relationships, emotions, and connections that aren’t visible at first glance. And when they share these observations, they build not only their thinking skills but also their communication skills. We have two key ATLs happening right there! 🤩

For my youngest learners, this might look like describing what they see in simple words: “I see a bird with a very long beak.” For older students, the conversation deepens into hypothesis and interpretation: “That long beak must be an adaptation. It probably helps the bird reach food that other animals can’t.”

The mats meet students exactly where they are developmentally, while still stretching their thinking.

How the Mats Build ATL Skills - Let’s break down how these mats connect to specific ATL categories:

• Thinking skills – Students practice analysing, interpreting, and connecting what they see to bigger concepts (cause and effect, adaptation, structure, systems).

• Research skills – Wonderings naturally lead into questions worth investigating: “Why would an animal need to camouflage?” “How do scientists find fossils?”

• Communication skills – Through partner and group discussion, students learn to express ideas clearly, listen actively, and build on others’ thoughts.

• Self-management skills – Slow looking builds patience, focus, and the ability to hold back from blurting out answers right away.

• Social skills – Working in small groups, students negotiate roles, respect differing ideas, and learn to collaborate in making meaning from the same provocation.

These skills grow naturally. I don’t have to teach “communication” as an abstract concept—students develop it authentically by sharing their observations and wonderings around the mat.

Practical Classroom Ideas - Here are three ways I’ve used the Look & Wonder Mats to invite curiosity and develop ATL skills, in both lower and upper grades: 

1. Collaborative Slow Looking Circles

• I place one mat in the center of a group of 3–5 students.

• We start with a full minute of silent, slow looking—no talking, just observing.

• Then each student shares one thing they noticed, going around the circle. After a round of “I see…,” we move into “I think…” and finally “I wonder…”

• With younger grades, I often scribe their ideas on sticky notes or the differentiated graphic organisers Ive created and place them around the mat, creating a visual record of group thinking.

• With upper grades, I challenge them to categorise their questions into “researchable questions” vs. “questions we can only speculate about.”

This activity slows the pace, ensures every voice is heard, and builds a foundation for inquiry questions.

2. Gallery Walk of Wonder 

• I spread several mats around the room, each linked loosely to our new unit’s central idea.

• Students rotate in small groups, spending 3–4 minutes at each station. Their job is to write or sketch their observations & questions on chart paper nearby.

• At the end, we gather as a class to sort all the recorded ideas into conceptual categories: adaptation, change, structure, causation, connection, etc.

What I love about this approach is that students begin to see patterns in their own thinking. They realise: “Oh, lots of our questions are about change over time,” or “We’re really curious about how things are built.” It’s a gentle way of scaffolding conceptual understanding.

3. Wonder Journals for Independent Reflection

• Each student keeps a small “Wonder Journal” in their inquiry notebook.

• When I project a Look & Wonder Story Mat at the start of a lesson, students quietly sketch and record:

  • One detail they noticed

  • One idea or connection they thought of

  • One question they wonder

• In lower grades, this might be supported with sentence stems or drawing space. In upper grades, I encourage students to expand their wonderings into “thick questions” that could drive an inquiry.

Over time, the journal becomes a personal record of growth in thinking and questioning skills. Students love flipping back to see how their wonderings evolve across the unit.

Lower Grades vs. Upper Grades

The beauty of these mats is their flexibility across ages. Here’s what I’ve found:

• Lower Grades (Pre-K–3):

  • Focus on language development, observation, and early questioning.

  • Scaffold with prompts: “I see… I think… I wonder…”

  • Use more group-based sharing to build confidence.

• Upper Grades (4–6+):

  • Push toward analysis, inference, and conceptual language.

  • Encourage categorizing questions, making hypotheses, and connecting to prior knowledge.

  • Transition from teacher-scribed ideas to student-owned recording.

In both cases, the mats serve as an on-ramp to inquiry, accessible yet challenging. They are very similar to the upper grades CONCEPT DISCUSSION MATS which you can learn more about here. If you're looking for a higher level concept-based activity, these concept mats are more suited to upper grades. 

Why I Keep Coming Back to These Mats

Every time I use these Look & Wonder Mats, I’m reminded that inquiry doesn’t start with a textbook or a lecture. It starts with curiosity. And curiosity starts with slowing down enough to notice and to wonder.

These mats don’t just decorate my walls or serve as one-off activities. They become living tools in the classroom—returning again and again throughout a unit. Students refer back to their wonderings, refine their thinking, and build new questions as their understanding deepens.

And for me, as a teacher, they’re a visible reminder of why I love the PYP: it’s not about delivering content, it’s about nurturing thinkers.

Final Thought

If you’re tuning into a new inquiry and want a simple yet powerful way to develop ATL skills, I can’t recommend Look & Wonder Mats enough. They’re not just pretty pictures—they’re provocations that invite students into the heart of inquiry.

The next time you’re launching a unit, try slowing down with one image. Watch your students lean in, whisper to each other, and start asking those big, beautiful questions. That’s when you’ll know: inquiry has begun.

👉 You can explore the full bundle of Look & Wonder Mats here .

P.S. If you'd like to explore more classroom ready tools all aligned with inquiry-based learning, head on over to my store right here. And check out the catalogue for PYP teaching tools here. Its free to download.