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The relevance of the subject of the article is due to the changes taking place in the world in the field of economy, management, resources, technologies, information, which could not but lead to the transformation of the education system. Today we are at the epicenter of this transformation, as evidenced by the 5th UNESCO Forum on Transformative Education for Sustainable Development, Global Citizenship, Health and Well-being. In the process of transformation, the participants in the educational process are changing: parents, teachers, preschoolers, kindergartens, pedagogical technologies, educational organizations. These processes are carried out in real time, and we are not always able to track and analyze them.

The purpose of the article is to show the results of a study of the transformation of museums from centers of storage of the tangible and intangible heritage of mankind, in the process of change, into non-formal and informal education centers with a set of educational tools and technologies peculiar to various types of museums, and the results of the impact of educational work of museums on children.

Research progress. The article presents the experience of museums as part of the modern process of preschool education based on the analysis of publications of researchers in the field of museum pedagogy. In the course of the research, publications of scientists were studied, both identifying and summarizing trends in the development of the educational activities of museums (for 1990-1999, and for 2000-2007), as well as individual works.

The results of the study show that the attention of museum teachers, especially in recent years, is directed to young children, for whom the museum becomes an alternative educational platform due to the resources that are already available in the museum and mastered as educational resources; due to programs based on museum and educational technologies to the greater willingness of museum teachers to implement new tools and technologies into their programs; by focusing on interactive forms of interaction; by involving the family more widely in museum activities, etc.

Conclusion. The current structure of education in the world is seriously destabilized due to the growing dissatisfaction with the results of the formal system, the lack of demand for trained personnel by the modern economy, the spread of informal forms of primary education and funding crises at the state and local levels. New horizons are being opened up by technological advances in communication, content sharing, and cultural expectations for access, empowerment, and personalization. A new era has begun, characterized by new economies based on various methods of sharing and using educational resources. In these conditions, the efforts of state educational policies are gradually turning to non-formal and informal education, the leaders of which is museums. This work should be taken into account at the state level today.

Background. The relevance of this study stems from the contradiction between the growing demand for the development of young children (aged 1–3) and the insufficient preparedness of educators to address their specific needs. Preschool teachers lack competence in areas such as pre-verbal communication, emotional regulation in toddlers, and working with parents, yet standard professional development courses fail to account for these specific aspects. This necessitates the development of a comprehensive personnel training concept, new educational programs, and flexible formats for non-formal education.

Objectives. To theoretically substantiate and empirically verify a holistic concept of developing professionalism among early childhood educators in the context of non-formal education, revealing its essence, structure, and dynamics as a nonlinear process of qualitative transformation of the specialist’s personality and activity.

Sample. The study sample consisted of 445 specialists from four regions of the Russian Federation, including 282 early childhood educators and 163 experts from psychological-pedagogical and methodological services. A subsample of 45 educators participated in the formative and control experiments.

Methods. A questionnaire survey with self-assessment and expert assessment of deficits, 18 focus groups (182 teachers), and analysis of activity products. A pedagogical experiment (N=45) based on the implementation of a non-formal learning community program, followed by verification of its effectiveness.

Results. A stable discrepancy was found between teachers’ self-assessment and the expert assessment of their professional deficits (p < 0.05), the most acute being in the methodological sphere (mean scores of 6.2 and 4.8, respectively). Professional deficits of teachers were recorded. Qualitative analysis of interview data showed that teachers are aware of their difficulties but do not have a sufficiently diverse set of tools to overcome them. The developed concept posits non-formal education as a special environment that generates professional new formations through the mechanisms of social learning, kinesthetic attunement, and collective creativity.

Conclusions. A holistic concept is presented that defines non-formal education as a possible resource for developing the professionalism of early childhood educators. Empirical evidence of its validity was obtained: statistically significant positive dynamics across all diagnosed indicators (p < 0.05), with the greatest increase in pedagogical sensitivity (32%) and pedagogical tactility (28%). Prospects for use are associated with the development of variable regional models of learning communities for specialists working with young children in different types and kinds of institutions.