“Families who participate in the program are coming back to the DIA, as well as visiting other cultural institutions. They see museums, zoos, and libraries as places where they belong.”
- Salvador Salort-Pons, Director, Detroit Institute of Arts
Detroit, MI (October 2026)-When children visit museums at a young age, it sparks curiosity and learning that will last a lifetime. It also reinforces an important part of our mission: museums are spaces for all. That’s the idea behind the Walters Family DIA Kids Program, which brings nearly 400 preschoolers, caregivers, and teachers to the Detroit Institute of Arts each year. The initiative began as a pilot program in 2019 and, thanks to generous support from Pete and Carol Walters and the Walters Family Foundation, is now funded in perpetuity.
Each year, the program brings students from underserved Metro Detroit communities to the DIA for two field trips and a museum-wide celebration called Family Day. Accessibility is at the heart of the program, creating a welcoming and comfortable environment where children and families feel they belong, while also providing free transportation, admission, and snacks.
You might be wondering exactly how to engage a group of 4-year-olds at the museum. It looks like spotting colors and animals in artwork, sitting cross-legged in the galleries for story time, and moving like a choo-choo train from place to place. After a time of exploring artwork, the children gather for some hands-on artmaking in the Studio. They create mosaics or sculptures inspired by the artwork they’ve seen, such as Quilting Time or weathervanes in the folk art gallery. In today’s digital world, there is something meaningful about giving children the chance to focus on one project, use their hands, and engage both body and mind.
The Walters Family DIA Kids Program isn’t successful by accident—it takes careful planning and collaboration. The DIA's Gallery Teaching staff partnered with HighScope Educational Research Foundation, a nationally renowned nonprofit, to create developmentally appropriate curriculum, evaluate the program through data and research, and provide professional development for DIA staff. This is the first time HighScope has worked in a museum setting, so its classroom model is being adapted to a museum environment in collaboration with the DIA’s Gallery Teaching team. The work we’re doing together is already becoming a model for museums nationwide.
All of this effort is worth it. Through HighScope, we’ve learned that families who participate in the program are coming back to the DIA, as well as visiting other cultural institutions. They see museums, zoos, and libraries as places where they belong.
In one recent session, 65% of surveyed caregivers said it was their first visit to the DIA. One caregiver shared that, before the visit, he was not sure whether the museum was a place for him. By the end of the day, after exploring the galleries and making art with his child, he felt he could return. That shift—from uncertainty to belonging—is the kind of lasting connection The Walters Family DIA Kids Program makes possible.
Results like these are especially meaningful to people like Sonia Mozak, a preschool teacher in Pontiac Public School District. Like many of her students, Sonia attended Pontiac schools and grew up in the area. Her parents were afraid to travel outside their community, so spontaneous trips to Detroit were not part of her childhood. Today, she’s grateful that her students’ worlds are expanding beyond their hometown through DIA Kids.
Teachers also find that the benefits of their visit are carried back into the classroom. The program models developmentally appropriate adult-child interactions and influences how educators approach art in the classroom. One Detroit teacher said the experience transformed her teaching, encouraging her to give students more freedom to experiment, take creative risks, and lead their own learning. She also became more intentional in how she responded to students’ artwork, asking questions and offering observations that encouraged deeper thinking.
That connection continues beyond the museum visit. Take-home activities allow children and families to keep learning together, and DIA staff members visit classrooms for story time during National Reading Month.
Programs like these remind me why museums matter. We often think about what we can teach children through art, but they also teach us to look more closely, ask questions, and approach the world with curiosity.
Thanks to the Tri-County millage, the DIA offers a robust K–12 program that brings nearly 60,000 students to the museum each year free of charge. DIAKids complements that work by reaching children even earlier. We’re grateful to the Walters Family for sponsoring both this vital program for preschoolers, as well as the DIA’s larger Education Programs, overseen by the endowed position of the Walters Family Director of Education Programs
Through the Walters Family DIA Kids Program, we’ve seen how early museum experiences can plant seeds of curiosity, confidence, and belonging that continue to grow long after a child leaves the museum. We are more focused than ever on growing this initiative because every child who enters our doors for the first time is beginning an adventure of discovery. We want them to leave knowing that they belong, that they matter, and that places like the DIA are for everyone.
https://dia.org/about/blog/dia-kids-building-lifetime-curiosity