Object Lessons and Early Learning

Exploring the history and modern day practice of object-based learning, Shaffer outlines the rationale for endorsing this approach in both formal and informal learning spaces. She argues that museums, as collecting institutions, are learning spaces uniquely positioned to allow children to make meaning about their world through personal connections to cultural artifacts, natural specimens, and works of art. A range of case study descriptive object lessons, inspired by objects in museums as well as from the everyday world, are presented throughout the text as examples of ways in which children can be encouraged to engage with museum collections.