Need a plan for Saturday morning or a free afternoon? This list pulls every family event on our calendar in the next month, soonest first, from kids' theater and family concerts to hands-on museum workshops. Each one opens to dates, prices and ages, so you can see what fits your kids before you book.
On Sint Maarten, Dutch kids carry lanterns through the dark and sing the saint's songs. This walk loops through the Vondelpark behind Toeters & Bellen, an Amsterdam street band playing in costumes strung with lights.
Bring a lantern, homemade or not, and join in. Kids who want to make one first can start at OCCII, a cultural center by the park, and walk over with the musicians.
Super Sint Maarten is a neighborhood lantern parade that winds through the streets of the Indische Buurt in Amsterdam-Oost. Kids bring homemade lanterns and walk alongside big lit-up light sculptures, Pretvormer's glowing parade animals, costumed neighbors and live brass and percussion bands.
Anyone can join the procession or watch from the sidewalk. It started as a neighborhood addition to the usual door-to-door candy round.
A forest ranger leads kids and their grown-ups on an evening loop through the Amsterdamse Bos on Sint Maarten, each child carrying a lantern. After dark the forest feels like a different place, and the lantern glow is the whole show.
There is a treat for every walker along the way. It suits kids who already know the Sint Maarten songs and younger ones walking with a lantern for the first time.
A read-aloud for the youngest listeners, from babies to preschoolers, in a children's bookshop. It is short enough for small attention spans. Parents stay close and can have coffee or tea in the shop's coffee corner while the reading happens.
Sinterklaas is staying at the castle, which is busy getting ready for pakjesavond. Kids hunt for Sint's lost things, see where he sleeps and where the presents wait, practice their Piet skills and make something in the castle workshop. On the weekends Sint is in, he greets every child himself, and kids can dance at the Piet disco, meet the circus Pieten, bake pepernoten and pet his horse.
An all-white stage fills up with color, one shade at a time, until everything is mixed together. Vases roll away, feathers fly around, soap bubbles turn into a crown and balls decide they are ladybugs.
When the show ends, the kids get to play in the set themselves, among all the colors of the rainbow.
Sinterklaas arrives by boat at the Appelweg, then a procession of Pieten walks him through the garden village of Tuindorp Oostzaan. It is a local tradition run by the neighborhood's Sint and Christmas committee. Kids who know the story will enjoy it most, and the whole route is out in the open.
Veere is looking forward to Sinterklaas evening, until Sinterklaas turns up stuck on the roof with his beard tangled in an antenna. Veere calls Jan the firefighter, who is a clumsy choice of rescuer. Kids dance and sing along to well-known and lesser-known Sinterklaas songs in a classic Toverknol show.
Sinterklaas arrives in Amstelveen with a parade of Pieten, music, dance and acrobatics, handing out pepernoten along the way. The procession winds through town to a welcome from the mayor and the children's mayor. Kids watch from the curb and wave. It suits young children who love the Sinterklaas story.
A Sinterklaas puppet show by Scratch Marionetten (Janet Cratchley) at Koos Kneus, a small, cozy puppet theater on Iepenplein. Bibi finds a lost horse in her tiny backyard, makes friends with it and feeds it every day, until its owner turns up.
Every child gets their face painted on arrival and can pull on dress-up clothes. The story is told in Dutch, so it suits kids who follow simple Dutch.
A musical theater show about a rubber stuntman who crashes through Professor BOEM's experiments until one test too many turns him to glass. Now he is afraid of every bump. Kids get slapstick, crashes and music, and a funny, gentle look at being scared and starting again. It suits kids who like a bit of adrenaline with their heart.
Sinterklaas wakes up outside the museum and has lost his magic book and three golden apples. Kids search for them with a museum guide through a canal house and its hidden attic church. Parents can come along or slip out for coffee. Everyone gets pepernoten and a drink afterward.
Every November, Sinterklaas sails into Amsterdam on his steamboat and the city comes out to welcome him. Kids wave from the banks of the Amstel as the boat goes by, then line the streets as he rides through the center with his Pieten and decorated floats. At Leidseplein he speaks to the children himself.
It is made for kids who still believe in him. Expect big crowds.
A drop-in craft table for the Sinterklaas season. Kids make surprises (the homemade disguised gifts Dutch families swap on pakjesavond), decorate a shoe to set out for Sint, and learn gift-wrapping traditions from around the world, like Japanese furoshiki cloth wrapping.
It suits kids who like to make things with their hands. It's part of the museum's Sunday holiday series, so you can pair it with a look around the galleries.
Släpstick is a Dutch troupe of musical clowns, and Schërzo is their slapstick take on classical music. They play Rossini, Brahms, Saint-Saëns and Gershwin while everything goes wrong: a yodeling Schubert, a ventriloquist duel with a bust of Beethoven, tennis with violins, the Danse Macabre on theremin. Meervaart tags it "language no problem," so kids with no Dutch can follow along.
Sinterklaas is nearly having his birthday, and he heads to Het Concertgebouw with the Pieten to celebrate with a sing-along concert in the Grote Zaal, the city's grand concert hall.
Pianist and band leader Cor Bakker plays with bass and drums while three actors carry the story: will Sinterklaas and the Pieten make it to the hall on time again this year? Kids sing along throughout.
The Ruggeds, two-time Breaking world champions, perform Adrenaline, a high-energy show combining breakdance, acrobatics, and spontaneous movement set to breakbeat rhythms. Dancers swing through the audience and hang from the lights in a performance built on risk and physical precision. The show has played over 100 times globally, from New York to South Africa to China.
Lennox knows his dad is ill, but nobody will tell him what's wrong. When his dad leaves for the hospital without his lucky necklace, Lennox and his best friend go after him. RIGHTABOUTNOW INC. and Dutch National Opera turn Zindzi Zevenbergen's award-winning book into a hip-hop opera, with a live band mixing jazz, gospel, Afro and hip-hop. It suits kids ready for a story with real stakes.
Offlab Studio is a series of three hands-on workshops led by two designers, Nina and Tina. Each one is its own project: a poster with a message the kid picks, made with collage, paint, stamps and drawings; a design printed on clothing; and a small book folded from one sheet of paper.
There's no right or wrong way here. Groups are small, and the focus is on trying things out.
A musical family show where the audience is part of the plot. Piet Julio wants to become Head Piet, but something goes wrong in the run-up to the party, and he needs Sinterklaas, Jeroen Kramer and the kids in the seats to fix it.
Expect sing-along songs, jokes and a visit from the Sint himself. It's in Dutch, so it suits kids who follow Dutch or already know the Sinterklaas songs.
Astronaut André Kuipers and writer Sander Koenen take the audience on a mission to the moon, with stories, video footage and live experiments on stage. Kids watch a rocket launch up close and find out how you eat, sleep, wash and pee in space, and how high you can jump on the moon.
The show is in Dutch, so it suits kids who follow spoken Dutch with ease.
A festive musical concert where new band member Selim Dogru from Turkey discovers his bandmates don't know Sint Baba's true origins. The show blends Dutch and Turkish sounds through songs and performances, with fairy tale characters unexpectedly appearing on stage. Includes treats and a cozy gathering after the show.
A gentle, cheerful show about butterflies, built from dance, music and paper props. Kids help hunt for butterflies that hide and pop up again, meet fireflies under the moon, and end up in a sea of butterflies.
Afterward, everyone is invited onto the stage to play in the set of butterflies, raindrops and grass. It suits toddlers and preschoolers who would rather move than sit still.
A comic, absurd theater piece by the Dutch company Gesneden Koek about a show that would rather not be watched. It sabotages itself at every turn: the wrong costumes, lights that cut out, romantic music over what should be a tough scene.
Underneath the silliness, it's about daring to be seen and getting past shame and fear. It suits kids who like physical comedy and a bit of chaos.
Pakjesavond is almost here, and Pim and Pom, the two cats from Fiep Westendorp's picture books, are beside themselves: wish lists to write, a house to decorate, Sinterklaas songs to sing. Then a message arrives from Sinterklaas himself. Has Pim been good? Has Pom helped around the house? A cheerful, song-filled show for the youngest theatergoers.
Volunteers at Speelboerderij Elsenhove, a city farm on the edge of Amstelveen, run a Sinterklaas afternoon where kids bake speculaas and pepernoten, the spiced cookies of the season.
Between batches there are rare old Dutch breeds to visit (belted cows, spotted goats, North-Holland blue hens) and a natural playground built for kids up to about 12. It suits preschoolers and school-age kids who like getting their hands in dough.
A gentle, almost wordless show that moves through spring, summer, fall and winter with dance, pictures and live music. Everything makes a sound, even clothes on a washing line, and bits of Vivaldi drift through on kalimba, ukulele and drums. Afterward kids get to play in the set with the leaves, the "snow" and other bits of nature. With so little spoken, it needs no Dutch.
The Amsterdam Museum turns 100, and it is celebrating with a festival of tours, creative workshops, exhibitions and birthday cake.
For families, the easiest way in is the giant city model, where projections show a small village on the Amstel growing into today's city, with 30,500 hand-placed buildings to spot. Much of the program is pitched at adults, so a visit to the model suits kids better than the talks and tours.
An exhibition of more than 80 works on paper from the museum's own collection, by Rembrandt and other artists up to today's makers, all experimenting with technique and material. In the middle of the show, visitors make their own drawing and try different papers and drawing materials, just like the artists on the walls. It all happens in the house where Rembrandt lived and worked.
An exhibition on the golden age of stage magic, around 1900, when magicians left the fairground for big theaters. Kids meet Harry Houdini, Okito and other famous acts, many of them Jewish performers, and see how vanishing, escaping and levitating tricks work.
Then they try a few themselves, like sawing a parent in half. Dutch illusionist Hans Klok is the guide. School-age kids get the most out of it.
Henry Chalfant photographed New York's graffiti scene in the 1970s and 80s, and STRAAT shows his work at true scale. Metro cars more than three meters tall pull you into the hall. Kids can draw their own pieces at a table, follow a treasure hunt made for families, or join a drop-in creative session.
Speel! (Play!) is a pop-up exhibition at Wereldmuseum Amsterdam about the stories behind well-known games, from the Royal Game of Ur to Tetris and from Mahjong to Mario. The point is to play: kids and parents can challenge each other on new and familiar games.
It also shows how games travel with people, like chess moving from India via Persia to Europe. Suits school-age kids who like games.
An outdoor ice rink on Museumplein, with the Rijksmuseum behind it and the Van Gogh Museum and Concertgebouw close by. Skates come in every size, so first-timers and confident skaters share the same ice. People skated on this square from 1887 to 1937, and the first official world speed skating championship was held here.
Next to the ice, Het Wak serves hot chocolate, lunch and dinner.
A kids' trail through Abracadabra, the Jewish Museum's exhibition on the golden age of stage magic. Kids grab a magic magnifying glass and hunt for seven magic props that illusionist Hans Klok has hidden among the displays.
Along the way they meet magicians like Harry Houdini and can try tricks themselves, like sawing mom in half or making a brother disappear. It suits curious kids who like a mission.
Meesterwerk Amsterdam brings the city's 17th-century paintings to the Stadsarchief, the city archive on Vijzelstraat. Kids look for hidden details in harbor scenes, markets and canal views, and ask whether the Golden Age city was as grand as the paintings say. A free treasure hunt booklet and an audio tour in Dutch and English let families explore at their own pace.
Willie wants nothing more than to be a real superhero: Super Willie. The trouble is, he's clumsy and has no idea how to get superpowers. Just as he's about to give up, a real superheroine appears.
It's a comic children's show at Kindertheater de Toverknol on the Kerkstraat, a good pick for kids who like superhero stories.
Dozens of giant Playmobil dioramas: knights and a dragon castle, pirate ships, Roman camps, pyramids on the Nile, a circus and Star Trek spaceships. Some scenes have their own shows, like Dragon Castle with fire-breathing dragons and Space Western.
Kids don't just look: in the big play zones and at the play tables they play with Playmobil themselves. It suits families and Playmobil collectors alike.
Kids paint their own rabbits in a landscape, inspired by Vincent van Gogh's Landscape with Rabbits from 1889. It is a hands-on painting session inside the museum, a good fit for kids who like to paint and are curious about Van Gogh's work.
A comic, dreamlike fairy tale about a king who is afraid of everything, most of all the elephants he says are coming. To keep them out, he invents strange rules, puts up odd signs and confiscates everyone's apples. Everyone obeys except Samar, who won't let herself be scared. It's funny first, and it asks what happens when one person refuses to be led by fear.
A detective-style walk through the Stadsschouwburg, Amsterdam's grand old city theater. A real theater guide leads kids and their grown-ups through the building, kids get to open doors that normally stay shut, and small games and tasks turn up the people who have acted, danced and sung here. Kids pick up some theater history and a little about acting along the way.
A two-hour guided outing in the woods with a certified nature guide. Kids climb, balance on logs and play nature games while the guide tells stories about what they find.
Each date has its own theme, such as a mushroom hunt, bird spotting or making art from leaves and twigs. It goes ahead in the rain, so it suits kids who like being outside in any weather.
Kids watch a few short films from Eye's collection, then make something themselves in a short family workshop. The workshop changes from session to session: making sound effects like a Foley artist, drawing a film on celluloid strips, building a flipbook or moving along to the film. A grown-up has to come along. It is a follow-up for kids who have outgrown Cinemini.
String players from Amsterdam Sinfonietta get an exciting letter: they're in a contest to see whose little plant grows the biggest. They're no good at sitting still, so while they wait they sing, dance and set their bows bouncing.
Kids meet the violin, viola, cello and double bass up close and are invited to bounce along. A playful first concert for preschoolers, made together with Het Concertgebouw.
Every winter, about 20 light artworks go up in, over and beside the canals of Amsterdam's old center. Families see them two ways: on foot along the route, or from a canal boat.
The festival app has a Kids Walk with fun facts, quiz questions and a scavenger hunt that ends in a small prize. It suits kids happy to be out in the cold after dark.
Christmas Village fills Museumplein, the big lawn in front of the Rijksmuseum, with wooden stalls selling winter food, hot drinks, art and Christmas gifts. Now in its tenth year, it is a stroll-and-snack outing more than a full day out.
It suits families who like to browse and graze, and pairs well with a museum morning. The lights look best once it gets dark, which in December is late afternoon.
Need a plan for Saturday morning or a free afternoon? This list pulls every family event on our calendar in the next month, soonest first, from kids' theater and family concerts to hands-on museum workshops. Each one opens to dates, prices and ages, so you can see what fits your kids before you book.
On Sint Maarten, Dutch kids carry lanterns through the dark and sing the saint's songs. This walk loops through the Vondelpark behind Toeters & Bellen, an Amsterdam street band playing in costumes strung with lights.
Bring a lantern, homemade or not, and join in. Kids who want to make one first can start at OCCII, a cultural center by the park, and walk over with the musicians.
Super Sint Maarten is a neighborhood lantern parade that winds through the streets of the Indische Buurt in Amsterdam-Oost. Kids bring homemade lanterns and walk alongside big lit-up light sculptures, Pretvormer's glowing parade animals, costumed neighbors and live brass and percussion bands.
Anyone can join the procession or watch from the sidewalk. It started as a neighborhood addition to the usual door-to-door candy round.
A forest ranger leads kids and their grown-ups on an evening loop through the Amsterdamse Bos on Sint Maarten, each child carrying a lantern. After dark the forest feels like a different place, and the lantern glow is the whole show.
There is a treat for every walker along the way. It suits kids who already know the Sint Maarten songs and younger ones walking with a lantern for the first time.
A read-aloud for the youngest listeners, from babies to preschoolers, in a children's bookshop. It is short enough for small attention spans. Parents stay close and can have coffee or tea in the shop's coffee corner while the reading happens.
Sinterklaas is staying at the castle, which is busy getting ready for pakjesavond. Kids hunt for Sint's lost things, see where he sleeps and where the presents wait, practice their Piet skills and make something in the castle workshop. On the weekends Sint is in, he greets every child himself, and kids can dance at the Piet disco, meet the circus Pieten, bake pepernoten and pet his horse.
An all-white stage fills up with color, one shade at a time, until everything is mixed together. Vases roll away, feathers fly around, soap bubbles turn into a crown and balls decide they are ladybugs.
When the show ends, the kids get to play in the set themselves, among all the colors of the rainbow.
Sinterklaas arrives by boat at the Appelweg, then a procession of Pieten walks him through the garden village of Tuindorp Oostzaan. It is a local tradition run by the neighborhood's Sint and Christmas committee. Kids who know the story will enjoy it most, and the whole route is out in the open.
Veere is looking forward to Sinterklaas evening, until Sinterklaas turns up stuck on the roof with his beard tangled in an antenna. Veere calls Jan the firefighter, who is a clumsy choice of rescuer. Kids dance and sing along to well-known and lesser-known Sinterklaas songs in a classic Toverknol show.
Sinterklaas arrives in Amstelveen with a parade of Pieten, music, dance and acrobatics, handing out pepernoten along the way. The procession winds through town to a welcome from the mayor and the children's mayor. Kids watch from the curb and wave. It suits young children who love the Sinterklaas story.
A Sinterklaas puppet show by Scratch Marionetten (Janet Cratchley) at Koos Kneus, a small, cozy puppet theater on Iepenplein. Bibi finds a lost horse in her tiny backyard, makes friends with it and feeds it every day, until its owner turns up.
Every child gets their face painted on arrival and can pull on dress-up clothes. The story is told in Dutch, so it suits kids who follow simple Dutch.
A musical theater show about a rubber stuntman who crashes through Professor BOEM's experiments until one test too many turns him to glass. Now he is afraid of every bump. Kids get slapstick, crashes and music, and a funny, gentle look at being scared and starting again. It suits kids who like a bit of adrenaline with their heart.
Sinterklaas wakes up outside the museum and has lost his magic book and three golden apples. Kids search for them with a museum guide through a canal house and its hidden attic church. Parents can come along or slip out for coffee. Everyone gets pepernoten and a drink afterward.
Every November, Sinterklaas sails into Amsterdam on his steamboat and the city comes out to welcome him. Kids wave from the banks of the Amstel as the boat goes by, then line the streets as he rides through the center with his Pieten and decorated floats. At Leidseplein he speaks to the children himself.
It is made for kids who still believe in him. Expect big crowds.
A drop-in craft table for the Sinterklaas season. Kids make surprises (the homemade disguised gifts Dutch families swap on pakjesavond), decorate a shoe to set out for Sint, and learn gift-wrapping traditions from around the world, like Japanese furoshiki cloth wrapping.
It suits kids who like to make things with their hands. It's part of the museum's Sunday holiday series, so you can pair it with a look around the galleries.
Släpstick is a Dutch troupe of musical clowns, and Schërzo is their slapstick take on classical music. They play Rossini, Brahms, Saint-Saëns and Gershwin while everything goes wrong: a yodeling Schubert, a ventriloquist duel with a bust of Beethoven, tennis with violins, the Danse Macabre on theremin. Meervaart tags it "language no problem," so kids with no Dutch can follow along.
Sinterklaas is nearly having his birthday, and he heads to Het Concertgebouw with the Pieten to celebrate with a sing-along concert in the Grote Zaal, the city's grand concert hall.
Pianist and band leader Cor Bakker plays with bass and drums while three actors carry the story: will Sinterklaas and the Pieten make it to the hall on time again this year? Kids sing along throughout.
The Ruggeds, two-time Breaking world champions, perform Adrenaline, a high-energy show combining breakdance, acrobatics, and spontaneous movement set to breakbeat rhythms. Dancers swing through the audience and hang from the lights in a performance built on risk and physical precision. The show has played over 100 times globally, from New York to South Africa to China.
Lennox knows his dad is ill, but nobody will tell him what's wrong. When his dad leaves for the hospital without his lucky necklace, Lennox and his best friend go after him. RIGHTABOUTNOW INC. and Dutch National Opera turn Zindzi Zevenbergen's award-winning book into a hip-hop opera, with a live band mixing jazz, gospel, Afro and hip-hop. It suits kids ready for a story with real stakes.
Offlab Studio is a series of three hands-on workshops led by two designers, Nina and Tina. Each one is its own project: a poster with a message the kid picks, made with collage, paint, stamps and drawings; a design printed on clothing; and a small book folded from one sheet of paper.
There's no right or wrong way here. Groups are small, and the focus is on trying things out.
A musical family show where the audience is part of the plot. Piet Julio wants to become Head Piet, but something goes wrong in the run-up to the party, and he needs Sinterklaas, Jeroen Kramer and the kids in the seats to fix it.
Expect sing-along songs, jokes and a visit from the Sint himself. It's in Dutch, so it suits kids who follow Dutch or already know the Sinterklaas songs.
Astronaut André Kuipers and writer Sander Koenen take the audience on a mission to the moon, with stories, video footage and live experiments on stage. Kids watch a rocket launch up close and find out how you eat, sleep, wash and pee in space, and how high you can jump on the moon.
The show is in Dutch, so it suits kids who follow spoken Dutch with ease.
A festive musical concert where new band member Selim Dogru from Turkey discovers his bandmates don't know Sint Baba's true origins. The show blends Dutch and Turkish sounds through songs and performances, with fairy tale characters unexpectedly appearing on stage. Includes treats and a cozy gathering after the show.
A gentle, cheerful show about butterflies, built from dance, music and paper props. Kids help hunt for butterflies that hide and pop up again, meet fireflies under the moon, and end up in a sea of butterflies.
Afterward, everyone is invited onto the stage to play in the set of butterflies, raindrops and grass. It suits toddlers and preschoolers who would rather move than sit still.
A comic, absurd theater piece by the Dutch company Gesneden Koek about a show that would rather not be watched. It sabotages itself at every turn: the wrong costumes, lights that cut out, romantic music over what should be a tough scene.
Underneath the silliness, it's about daring to be seen and getting past shame and fear. It suits kids who like physical comedy and a bit of chaos.
Pakjesavond is almost here, and Pim and Pom, the two cats from Fiep Westendorp's picture books, are beside themselves: wish lists to write, a house to decorate, Sinterklaas songs to sing. Then a message arrives from Sinterklaas himself. Has Pim been good? Has Pom helped around the house? A cheerful, song-filled show for the youngest theatergoers.
Volunteers at Speelboerderij Elsenhove, a city farm on the edge of Amstelveen, run a Sinterklaas afternoon where kids bake speculaas and pepernoten, the spiced cookies of the season.
Between batches there are rare old Dutch breeds to visit (belted cows, spotted goats, North-Holland blue hens) and a natural playground built for kids up to about 12. It suits preschoolers and school-age kids who like getting their hands in dough.
A gentle, almost wordless show that moves through spring, summer, fall and winter with dance, pictures and live music. Everything makes a sound, even clothes on a washing line, and bits of Vivaldi drift through on kalimba, ukulele and drums. Afterward kids get to play in the set with the leaves, the "snow" and other bits of nature. With so little spoken, it needs no Dutch.
The Amsterdam Museum turns 100, and it is celebrating with a festival of tours, creative workshops, exhibitions and birthday cake.
For families, the easiest way in is the giant city model, where projections show a small village on the Amstel growing into today's city, with 30,500 hand-placed buildings to spot. Much of the program is pitched at adults, so a visit to the model suits kids better than the talks and tours.
An exhibition of more than 80 works on paper from the museum's own collection, by Rembrandt and other artists up to today's makers, all experimenting with technique and material. In the middle of the show, visitors make their own drawing and try different papers and drawing materials, just like the artists on the walls. It all happens in the house where Rembrandt lived and worked.
An exhibition on the golden age of stage magic, around 1900, when magicians left the fairground for big theaters. Kids meet Harry Houdini, Okito and other famous acts, many of them Jewish performers, and see how vanishing, escaping and levitating tricks work.
Then they try a few themselves, like sawing a parent in half. Dutch illusionist Hans Klok is the guide. School-age kids get the most out of it.
Henry Chalfant photographed New York's graffiti scene in the 1970s and 80s, and STRAAT shows his work at true scale. Metro cars more than three meters tall pull you into the hall. Kids can draw their own pieces at a table, follow a treasure hunt made for families, or join a drop-in creative session.
Speel! (Play!) is a pop-up exhibition at Wereldmuseum Amsterdam about the stories behind well-known games, from the Royal Game of Ur to Tetris and from Mahjong to Mario. The point is to play: kids and parents can challenge each other on new and familiar games.
It also shows how games travel with people, like chess moving from India via Persia to Europe. Suits school-age kids who like games.
An outdoor ice rink on Museumplein, with the Rijksmuseum behind it and the Van Gogh Museum and Concertgebouw close by. Skates come in every size, so first-timers and confident skaters share the same ice. People skated on this square from 1887 to 1937, and the first official world speed skating championship was held here.
Next to the ice, Het Wak serves hot chocolate, lunch and dinner.
A kids' trail through Abracadabra, the Jewish Museum's exhibition on the golden age of stage magic. Kids grab a magic magnifying glass and hunt for seven magic props that illusionist Hans Klok has hidden among the displays.
Along the way they meet magicians like Harry Houdini and can try tricks themselves, like sawing mom in half or making a brother disappear. It suits curious kids who like a mission.
Meesterwerk Amsterdam brings the city's 17th-century paintings to the Stadsarchief, the city archive on Vijzelstraat. Kids look for hidden details in harbor scenes, markets and canal views, and ask whether the Golden Age city was as grand as the paintings say. A free treasure hunt booklet and an audio tour in Dutch and English let families explore at their own pace.
Willie wants nothing more than to be a real superhero: Super Willie. The trouble is, he's clumsy and has no idea how to get superpowers. Just as he's about to give up, a real superheroine appears.
It's a comic children's show at Kindertheater de Toverknol on the Kerkstraat, a good pick for kids who like superhero stories.
Dozens of giant Playmobil dioramas: knights and a dragon castle, pirate ships, Roman camps, pyramids on the Nile, a circus and Star Trek spaceships. Some scenes have their own shows, like Dragon Castle with fire-breathing dragons and Space Western.
Kids don't just look: in the big play zones and at the play tables they play with Playmobil themselves. It suits families and Playmobil collectors alike.
Kids paint their own rabbits in a landscape, inspired by Vincent van Gogh's Landscape with Rabbits from 1889. It is a hands-on painting session inside the museum, a good fit for kids who like to paint and are curious about Van Gogh's work.
A comic, dreamlike fairy tale about a king who is afraid of everything, most of all the elephants he says are coming. To keep them out, he invents strange rules, puts up odd signs and confiscates everyone's apples. Everyone obeys except Samar, who won't let herself be scared. It's funny first, and it asks what happens when one person refuses to be led by fear.
A detective-style walk through the Stadsschouwburg, Amsterdam's grand old city theater. A real theater guide leads kids and their grown-ups through the building, kids get to open doors that normally stay shut, and small games and tasks turn up the people who have acted, danced and sung here. Kids pick up some theater history and a little about acting along the way.
A two-hour guided outing in the woods with a certified nature guide. Kids climb, balance on logs and play nature games while the guide tells stories about what they find.
Each date has its own theme, such as a mushroom hunt, bird spotting or making art from leaves and twigs. It goes ahead in the rain, so it suits kids who like being outside in any weather.
Kids watch a few short films from Eye's collection, then make something themselves in a short family workshop. The workshop changes from session to session: making sound effects like a Foley artist, drawing a film on celluloid strips, building a flipbook or moving along to the film. A grown-up has to come along. It is a follow-up for kids who have outgrown Cinemini.
String players from Amsterdam Sinfonietta get an exciting letter: they're in a contest to see whose little plant grows the biggest. They're no good at sitting still, so while they wait they sing, dance and set their bows bouncing.
Kids meet the violin, viola, cello and double bass up close and are invited to bounce along. A playful first concert for preschoolers, made together with Het Concertgebouw.
Every winter, about 20 light artworks go up in, over and beside the canals of Amsterdam's old center. Families see them two ways: on foot along the route, or from a canal boat.
The festival app has a Kids Walk with fun facts, quiz questions and a scavenger hunt that ends in a small prize. It suits kids happy to be out in the cold after dark.
Christmas Village fills Museumplein, the big lawn in front of the Rijksmuseum, with wooden stalls selling winter food, hot drinks, art and Christmas gifts. Now in its tenth year, it is a stroll-and-snack outing more than a full day out.
It suits families who like to browse and graze, and pairs well with a museum morning. The lights look best once it gets dark, which in December is late afternoon.
