5 Ways To Celebrate El Día Del Niño in and Around Denver This Year

This one’s for the kiddos (and kids at heart). A Mexican tradition since 1925, Día del Niño—or Day of the Child—celebrates little ones and their importance to our future. The fiesta, traditionally April 30 in Mexico, goes down this weekend (April 26 and 27) in Colorado, thanks to the Mexican Cultural Center, which partnered with nine venues to waive museum admissions, put on boisterous performances, and sponsor arts and crafts projects and science experiments for aspiring naturalists and mini culture vultures.

Most of the free festivities are clustered in Golden Triangle, and a couple are farther afield in City Park and Boulder. Here are five can’t-miss events to celebrate.

1. Denver Art Museum

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• Date: Sunday, April 27
• Hours: 10 a.m.–5 p.m.
• Admission: Free
• Location: 100 W. 14th Ave., Denver (Civic Center)

If your fridge is plastered with your children’s art, that’s your sign to bring them to the 23rd annual Día del Niño at the Denver Art Museum. Take a gander at Sustained! The Persistent Genius of Indigenous Art exhibit, which celebrates Indigenous contributions to the arts, then head to the Wild Studio for live demos by Denver painter and collage artist Beatriz Gómez. Snap family funny faces in a photo booth and create an illuminated name tag in the first floor Creative Hub. If you want to be serenaded, you can tap your toes to performances from groups Ballet Folklórico Sangre de México, Celtic Steps (Irish dance), and Chihera (African marimbas) throughout the day.

2. Denver Museum of Nature and Science

• Date: Sunday, April 27
• Hours: 9 a.m.–5 p.m.
• Admission: Free
• Location: 2001 Colorado Blvd., Denver (City Park)

There’s more to science and nature than your backyard: There’s liquid nitrogen! So bring your budding scientist to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science’s Día del Niño bash to see how this mega cold element (-320°F!) does mind-boggling things to balloons and Cheetos. And if the latter makes you hungry, nosh on paletas, tamales, elote, and churros from the T-Rex Cafe. Catch Qhashwa Peru USA, a local Peruvian Dance ensemble, or see the Spirit of Cambodia ballet and Khmer folk dancing, which pairs well with the Angkor: The Lost Empire of Cambodia exhibition. But if all that sounds tiring and you’d prefer to sit in the dark while the stars do the dancing, the Gates Planetarium is 50 percent off all day.

3. Clyfford Still Museum

• Date: Sunday, April 27
• Hours: 10:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m.
• Admission: Free
• Location: 1250 Bannock St., Denver (Civic Center)

Bop along to traditional Danza Matachines Guadalupana dance and catch the Colorado Youth Mariachi Program doing their thing while your little Johnny Appleseed makes an Indigenous plant-seed bomb at the Día del Niño event at the Clyfford Still Museum. Led by Kristina Maldonado Bad Hand, a Sicangu Lakota and Cherokee artist, the plant-seed bombs help return Native plants to the urban expanses of Denver.

4. History Colorado Center

• Date: Sunday, April 27
• Hours: 10 a.m.–5 p.m.
• Admission: Free
• Location: 1200 N. Broadway, Denver (Globeville)

In these unsettled times, History Colorado’s ¡Viva La Causa! Long Live the Cause!: The Art of Change exhibition might help littles (and you) see current events a little clearer through the past. El Sistema Colorado, an after-hours program which gives low-income kids from three to 18 free musical instruments and lessons, kicks off the performances at 10 in the lobby. Stick around for sets by Aspen Santa Fe Ballet Folklórco and Flamenco Denver that will be sure to keep your toes tapping and hips swaying all day.

5. Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art

• Date: Saturday, April 26
• Hours: 11 a.m.–2 p.m.
• Admission: Free
• Location: 1212 Canyon Blvd., Boulder (Boulder Civic Area Park’s Glen Huntington Bandshell) and 1750 13th St., Boulder (BMOCA)

Boulderites can get in on the fun, too. Bring the whole familia to the bandshell in Civic Area Park for face painting, floral headband making, and other artsy crafts, while Ballet Folklórico de la Diversidad Cultural, Cellist for Change, and Mi Chantli whoop it up on stage at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art’s Día del Niño fiesta. Mosey over to the museum for the finale: a scavenger hunt and piñata whacking.