ABSTRACT
This chapter draws on museum education theory that foregrounded both the social and the material qualities of engagement with collections. A guiding principle in the project was not only to follow the object-led movements of children through the museum space, but that, in so doing, the museum experience was always responsive to directions taken by children in and beyond the museum: their interests and their connection-making. The Reggio Emilia pedagogy on which the preschool was founded played an important role in the case study research. Because Reggio Emilia focuses on the learning that occurs in daily life and lived experiences of the children, excursions, walks, library and museum visits were common practice at the preschool. At the Swedish Museum of Natural History, the children were even more robust in determining their shared interests. The children were now far more invested in communicating with one another about what they were interested in, rather than arguing over taking turns for exhibitions.
