Columbia, SC (WLTX) -- Inside the Columbia Museum of Art there was dancing, clapping, and painting on Wednesday.
All the things you probably wouldn't expect at the downtown Columbia museum, all in the name of education.
According to the education director at the museum Kerry Kuhlkin-Hornsby, "Every 3rd grader in Richland School District One comes to the museum for a three-part program."
Kuhlkin-Hornsby said, "One to meet the author and hear the story, two to come on a tour of the portraiture with emphasis on the Richard Samuel Roberts photographs, and three to go into our art studio and create a work of art based on the images from this exhibition."
Kuhlkin-Hornsby believes it is important for young students to be exposed to the arts, especially local artists and writers.
"This artist and this author are from Columbia, S.C., so we hope it inspires these students that they too can grow upto be whatever they want to be," said Kuhlkin-Hornsby.
Jamia East and Heaven Goode were two of the students that participated in the event and were inspired by what they saw.
East said, "I learned that you can make words out of anything, you just have to put your mind to it, work very hard and someday you will be an author or something else."
"I learned that there are different kinds of cultures and a lot of different books that are great," said Goode.
It those kind of responses that makes having a little noise in the museum worth it according to Kuhlkin-Hornsby.
This program is a partnership with the Columbia Museum of art, the City of Columbia's Together We Can Read initiative and the Richland County Public Library.
The program included Dinah Johnson reading her book All Around Town, which features the pictures of Richard Samuel Roberts, an African-American photographer of the 1920s and 1930s.