Young children developing meaning-making practices in a museum: the role of boundary objects

A kindergarten, housed in a museum building in the centre of the capital city of New Zealand, has provided a unique opportunity for young children, teachers and university researchers to explore opportunities to learn with, and from, a museum's artefacts and exhibitions. The authors have researched the ways in which the children constructed meaning from the displays and the knowledge offered by the museum. This article explores the children's learning when they visited one of the special exhibitions during the first year of an action research project. We highlight their developing boundary-crossing competence and meaning-making practices and explore the role of ‘boundary objects’ in this learning. This article focuses on some of these objects and considers the way in which (associated with dialogue) they contributed to highlighting and strengthening the learning opportunities in the museum.