Rainy day, restless kids? The museums on this list give children something to do, not just something to look at: a lab coat and a daily experiment, a ship's hammock to swing in, a green screen, a family route past the dollhouses. Some run weekend workshops for kids. Here's what we checked, from NEMO's science floors to the church hidden in a canal-house attic.
NEMO is a hands-on science museum where kids test things for themselves. Fenomena covers light, sound and static electricity, Technium the technology around us, Elementa space and lab experiments, and Humania the human body through games and tests.
In the daily lab workshop kids put on lab coats and safety glasses for experiments with everyday objects. The roof is the highest city square in the Netherlands, with wide city views.
The National Maritime Museum fills a 17th-century naval storehouse on the Oosterdok with 500 years of Dutch seafaring. Moored outside is a full-size replica of the East Indiaman Amsterdam, where kids swing in hammocks, haul cargo and take the helm.
Inside, Doris the Diver is a story-led play exhibition for the youngest visitors, and The Tale of the Whale lets older kids step inside a life-size whale.
Micropia is a science museum about microbes, the living things too small to see with the naked eye. More than 40 species grow in a working lab inside the museum, and kids look at them through microscopes and watch the lab technicians at work.
Interactive exhibits like the Kiss-o-meter and the Bodyscan show how many microbes live on and inside a person, and a new microbe goes on show each month.
Wereldmuseum Amsterdam, formerly the Tropenmuseum, collects objects and stories from cultures around the world, from its colonial history to games and holidays. Its family program, Wereldmuseum Junior, is built for touching and trying. In Raad van de Raaf, kids test their balance in a kayak, step onto a Greenlandic dog sled and listen to melting ice caps. CELEBRATION! Worldwide is a party shop of festival objects from many countries.
The Jewish Museum sits in the former Great Synagogue and covers Jewish religion, history and daily life through objects, art and personal stories, including the silver Rintel chanukiah, over a meter tall.
Off the lobby, Jewish Museum Junior is the Hollander family home, where everything can be picked up: kids bake challah in the kitchen, write their name in Hebrew and listen to Jewish music in the attic.
The Rijksmuseum is the national museum of the Netherlands, set in a castle-like building on Museumplein. Its 8,000 objects run from Rembrandt's Night Watch and Vermeer's Milkmaid to an airplane, dollhouses, hundreds of weapons and ship models.
Kids can pick up a Family Route booklet at the info desk or follow the Family Quest through the galleries, and on weekends there's a picnic area for packed lunches.
The Van Gogh Museum holds the largest collection of Vincent van Gogh's work anywhere, from Sunflowers to his self-portraits, drawings and letters.
Kids can pick up a treasure hunt sheet or a checklist of ten paintings at the Information Desk and tick each one off as they find it. Weekend painting workshops let them make a picture of their own afterward.
A former cargo barge moored on the Prinsengracht, kept as the family home it was from 1967 to 1997. Visitors step down five steps at the stern into a 23-meter boat whose period rooms keep their original decoration, down to the living-room fireplace.
At the bow, kids can spot the rivets holding the steel plates together. Houseboat models, photos and a free audio guide in 18 languages fill in the story.
Eye is a film museum and cinema in a white building on the north bank of the IJ, opposite Central Station. The permanent exhibition downstairs has a green screen that puts kids into a scene from a film, a flipbook machine, private mini cinemas, and a wall that turns dancing into animation.
Families can pick up a discovery booklet for a mission around the exhibition. Upstairs, the bar-restaurant looks out over the water.
This is the house where Rembrandt lived and painted, with his studio and an etching loft. Staff show how he made his own paint, from toxic lead and red lice to linseed oil and pig bladders, then ink and print etchings on a press. Everyone takes a print home.
A family audio tour follows Kwast, the painter's dog, through the house's secret nooks and crannies.
STRAAT is a museum of street art and graffiti in an industrial warehouse on the old NDSM shipyard. More than 180 works by over 170 artists fill the vast hall, and the display changes as new pieces join the collection.
On some days artists paint live, and workshops teach graffiti techniques so kids can make a piece of their own. It suits kids who like big, loud color more than quiet galleries.
A 17th-century canal house where narrow corridors and steep stairs lead past period rooms, kitchens and box beds to a complete church hidden in the attic, built in 1663 when Catholics could not worship in public.
Kids follow a ladybird trail, opening marked cupboards to find out what an altar is and how an organ works. Older kids can earn a certificate on an audio tour.
Rainy day, restless kids? The museums on this list give children something to do, not just something to look at: a lab coat and a daily experiment, a ship's hammock to swing in, a green screen, a family route past the dollhouses. Some run weekend workshops for kids. Here's what we checked, from NEMO's science floors to the church hidden in a canal-house attic.
NEMO is a hands-on science museum where kids test things for themselves. Fenomena covers light, sound and static electricity, Technium the technology around us, Elementa space and lab experiments, and Humania the human body through games and tests.
In the daily lab workshop kids put on lab coats and safety glasses for experiments with everyday objects. The roof is the highest city square in the Netherlands, with wide city views.
The National Maritime Museum fills a 17th-century naval storehouse on the Oosterdok with 500 years of Dutch seafaring. Moored outside is a full-size replica of the East Indiaman Amsterdam, where kids swing in hammocks, haul cargo and take the helm.
Inside, Doris the Diver is a story-led play exhibition for the youngest visitors, and The Tale of the Whale lets older kids step inside a life-size whale.
Micropia is a science museum about microbes, the living things too small to see with the naked eye. More than 40 species grow in a working lab inside the museum, and kids look at them through microscopes and watch the lab technicians at work.
Interactive exhibits like the Kiss-o-meter and the Bodyscan show how many microbes live on and inside a person, and a new microbe goes on show each month.
Wereldmuseum Amsterdam, formerly the Tropenmuseum, collects objects and stories from cultures around the world, from its colonial history to games and holidays. Its family program, Wereldmuseum Junior, is built for touching and trying. In Raad van de Raaf, kids test their balance in a kayak, step onto a Greenlandic dog sled and listen to melting ice caps. CELEBRATION! Worldwide is a party shop of festival objects from many countries.
The Jewish Museum sits in the former Great Synagogue and covers Jewish religion, history and daily life through objects, art and personal stories, including the silver Rintel chanukiah, over a meter tall.
Off the lobby, Jewish Museum Junior is the Hollander family home, where everything can be picked up: kids bake challah in the kitchen, write their name in Hebrew and listen to Jewish music in the attic.
The Rijksmuseum is the national museum of the Netherlands, set in a castle-like building on Museumplein. Its 8,000 objects run from Rembrandt's Night Watch and Vermeer's Milkmaid to an airplane, dollhouses, hundreds of weapons and ship models.
Kids can pick up a Family Route booklet at the info desk or follow the Family Quest through the galleries, and on weekends there's a picnic area for packed lunches.
The Van Gogh Museum holds the largest collection of Vincent van Gogh's work anywhere, from Sunflowers to his self-portraits, drawings and letters.
Kids can pick up a treasure hunt sheet or a checklist of ten paintings at the Information Desk and tick each one off as they find it. Weekend painting workshops let them make a picture of their own afterward.
A former cargo barge moored on the Prinsengracht, kept as the family home it was from 1967 to 1997. Visitors step down five steps at the stern into a 23-meter boat whose period rooms keep their original decoration, down to the living-room fireplace.
At the bow, kids can spot the rivets holding the steel plates together. Houseboat models, photos and a free audio guide in 18 languages fill in the story.
Eye is a film museum and cinema in a white building on the north bank of the IJ, opposite Central Station. The permanent exhibition downstairs has a green screen that puts kids into a scene from a film, a flipbook machine, private mini cinemas, and a wall that turns dancing into animation.
Families can pick up a discovery booklet for a mission around the exhibition. Upstairs, the bar-restaurant looks out over the water.
This is the house where Rembrandt lived and painted, with his studio and an etching loft. Staff show how he made his own paint, from toxic lead and red lice to linseed oil and pig bladders, then ink and print etchings on a press. Everyone takes a print home.
A family audio tour follows Kwast, the painter's dog, through the house's secret nooks and crannies.
STRAAT is a museum of street art and graffiti in an industrial warehouse on the old NDSM shipyard. More than 180 works by over 170 artists fill the vast hall, and the display changes as new pieces join the collection.
On some days artists paint live, and workshops teach graffiti techniques so kids can make a piece of their own. It suits kids who like big, loud color more than quiet galleries.
A 17th-century canal house where narrow corridors and steep stairs lead past period rooms, kitchens and box beds to a complete church hidden in the attic, built in 1663 when Catholics could not worship in public.
Kids follow a ladybird trail, opening marked cupboards to find out what an altar is and how an organ works. Older kids can earn a certificate on an audio tour.
