School Librarian in Action

Saturday, July 11, 2026

Make Your Own Storybook Workshop with Pilot Pens

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Friday, July 10, 2026

The Lighthouse Diary Entry #89: Our Wonderings and Our Ways of Knowing

July settled in quite quickly while I was still experiencing separation anxiety from our 7-day, 6-night trip to South Korea for the 2026 FESTA celebration. I have yet to post my travel logs here on the blog as part of my coping mechanism, but life goes on.

Indeed, it does in the form of work and responsibilities. Having made and forged new memories and lasting relationships with my grown up children weeks ago, I face real life with tenderness and, more importantly, gusto. I surprise myself because I am enjoying my summer classes a little extra this year!

For the first time, I am running our bridging program for incoming Grade 7 and Grade 8 students. It's a program that the school entrusted me to design and implement. I followed the basic principles of Reading into Writing and Inquiry-Based Learning. A component of the program is Research Skills, an area I am always excited to teach.

After having the class read a nonfiction text about Tetris and using the framework READ, NOTICE, WONDER, DISCUSS, WRITE, and REFLECT, I extracted their questions from the WONDER part of the framework because their questions were authentic forms of inquiry. I then presented four categories of knowledge: Design, Technology, History, and Impact. What we did next was explore these categories by associating words and connecting them to ideas the students were able to think about. We had enough words to come up with a definition for each category of knowledge.

It did not end there. We turned to a dictionary to establish each definition based on a credible reference source. This proved that knowledge is something we can build, create, validate, question and communicate. After establishing the terms and definitions, I showed the students where each question fell, modeling the classification and organization of knowledge. A word is not just a word.

This entire exercise is preparatory to learning search strategies for using online databases, search engines, and AI-powered tools. It is also one way to activate prior knowledge and expand vocabulary. The next class is a full-on session on types of sources, establishing their credibility, and applying keyword strategies for searching. This is love!