Leikki and Tartu Toy Museum are collaborating in an Erasmus+ project about museum pedagogy

The Tartu Toy Museum in Estonia and Leikki, the Museum of Play, in Finland will carry out a project in the field of museum pedagogy in 2025 and 2026. The project has received Erasmus+ funding from the European Union. It involves museum lecturers Katrin Vask and Kadri Toomsalu from the Tartu Toy Museum, and museum director Johanna Rassi, curator of public relations Tuuli Uusikukka and museum pedagogue Anna Väänänen from Leikki.

The project will produce tools for museum pedagogues to integrate mental health themes into museum education (Methodology necessary for museum pedagogues for integrating the topic of mental health). Leikki focuses on children in grades 4-8 and the Tartu Toy Museum focuses on children younger than this.

The project will work in close cooperation with experts in the field of mental health and education, and will produce a manual. Exercises of the manual will be piloted with groups at the museums. In spring 2026, the project will organise a seminar for museum educators where the outcomes of the project will be the introduced, and we will inform of the outcomes more widely in the museum and educational sectors.