Learning & Development: Museums - A world of objects

Our project to explore young children’s responses to museum collections was devised as part of a long-term partnership between Exeter’s Royal Albert Memorial Museum and Art Gallery (RAMM) and West Exe Children’s Centre. Through the project, we hoped to discover how three- to five-year-olds can appreciate objects and make connections from them.

At various points during RAMM activities, we had observed that children were intrigued by objects but had, understandably, learnt few indicators about the age, material composition, use or value of them. To learn more, we decided to start from objects that the children or their families regarded as ‘valuable’.

The Children’s Centre organised and encouraged families to choose an object of value to them and we ran sessions to find out why these objects were valuable. We laid out a table full of assorted objects (not museum objects) and ran a version of Kim’s game by asking the children to group objects and explain their reasons. Finally, we organised a ‘virtual’ museum day to which parents were invited following some of the ideas that had arisen from earlier sessions. Predictably a ‘valuable object’ to the children was often a stuffed toy which is valid, if a bit repetitive.