Eight to twelve is the age when kids want to build, test and perform things themselves, and get bored fast when they can't. We pull together the hands-on workshops, science labs, circus and theater shows, author readings and places across the city that are set up for that age, not for toddlers.
A hands-on craft workshop where kids build paper torches inspired by Minecraft that light up. They learn how a simple electric circuit works and wire it with conductive tape, then shape the torch from colored and see-through paper however they like. Each kid takes their torch home, ready for an evening walk in the dark. Run by the library with the paper-electronics makers Volt Paper Scissors.
Bauchgefühl is a poetic play about two people who perceive the world differently and keep bumping into each other in the same office. One rainy day, objects come to life, words turn into movement, signs into sound and images into crackling descriptions.
It is made for deaf and hearing, blind, visually impaired and sighted audiences together, so a kid sees how many ways there are to understand someone.
A puppet and object theater take on Andersen's Little Match Girl, set in today's Berlin. On New Year's Eve, old Frau Friedel walks the snowy streets of a city that has changed around her, and she has lost a lot along the way. In the glow of each match she strikes, things look different. A detailed Berlin street set carries much of the story, so it suits school-age kids who enjoy a quiet, thoughtful show.
Kids and grown-ups don't sit and watch here: they share the stage with four professional krump dancers and help decide how the piece unfolds.
Krump is a street dance born in Los Angeles as a response to inequality, built on community and backing each other. Choreographer Janne Gregor turns it into a group game, so every show comes out different. A good fit for movers, less so for shy watchers.
Traumkeramik Julion is the Kreuzberg studio where potter Julia Arnold has made cheerful, dishwasher-safe tableware since 1999. For birthdays the studio is decorated and kids model clay together, then each picks a project of their own: a funny animal, a trinket box, hearts or a candle holder (no everyday dishes). Between rounds there is cake, presents and a guitar sing-along while parents head out for coffee nearby.
A monthly evening program where the Labyrinth Kindermuseum turns off the lights and kids explore its TALENTOPIA exhibition with headlamps, UV light and glowing materials. Across six stations they build, craft, dance and dress up, trying out movement, music, touch, logic, language and art. It ends with the big marble run lit up and glowing paper planes sailing through the dark museum. Parents drop off and pick up.
A special exhibition at the Deutsches Technikmuseum, planned with 60 Berlin schoolkids as curators. Their models of a future city sit at the center, surrounded by prototypes and ideas for housing, energy, climate and nature.
Kids can build their own city in kinetic sand, test a sensor trash can, match animals to habitats and step in front of the Invisible Shield. It suits curious primary-school kids best.
Once the Museum für Naturkunde closes for the day, visitors sneak through its dark exhibition rooms by flashlight. A guide leads the search for animals of the night, and kids explore the exhibitions.
It suits curious kids who follow spoken German and are happy in the dark.
Families look for angels in the Gemäldegalerie's old paintings: some play music, some bring news, some fight, some pray. Then everyone makes their own winged angel figure.
A drop-in craft workshop inspired by the biting, funny works of artist Maurizio Cattelan. Kids make pop-up cards that bring cheeky little figures to life, then post the caricature to someone who needs to hear it or leave it somewhere in the city for a stranger to find. Suits kids who like making things and have a sharp sense of humor.
Czech illustrator Lucie Lučanská opens with a reading from her picture book, which follows a walk from a village into the forest and back, told one sense at a time.
Then kids draw their own route to the library on a very long roll of paper: what they saw, heard, touched, smelled and tasted, mixing in collage and rubbings. It suits kids who like to draw and take their time.
A guided family talk through the special exhibition on Genghis Khan and the Mongols. Kids meet the animals of the steppe nomads, come face to face with brightly painted grave guardian figures and travel back to the Great Khan's palace in Karakorum, the Mongol capital.
The big moment is a real yurt, where kids step inside and decide whether it could be home. It suits curious kids with big questions.
Families explore the sound rooms of composer and artist Ryuichi Sakamoto, where hearing, seeing and feeling blur together. Back in the studio, everyone turns what they felt into small movement exercises, and families can design a Family Sunday poster of their impressions. Best for kids who like to listen, move and make things.
Tur Tur Theater's modern take on the musical classic. Dorothy lands in the land beyond the rainbow and sets off to find the Wizard of Oz, picking up a scarecrow who wants more brains, a tin man who lost his heart and a lion afraid of everything.
Sophie Ammann and Alexander Altomirianos play it as a story about friendship, made for laughing, crying and thinking.
A hands-on family workshop from the Museum für Islamische Kunst. Families work together on their own vest: a mesh fabric becomes the canvas, decorated with colorful thread, beads and child-safe needles, using patterns from the museum's collection or straight from imagination. Kids pick up simple knotting and embroidery stitches along the way, and the finished vest goes home with them. Best for kids patient enough to thread a needle.
Grüne Woche is a huge indoor food and farming fair across the Messe Berlin halls. Around 1,600 exhibitors offer tastings of regional and international specialties, from fruit and vegetables to fish, meat, wine and beer. Kids can try hands-on activities on farming and food, and there is a family room for breaks. It is closer to a trade fair than a kids' festival, so it suits curious school-age children best.
A hands-on craft workshop at MACHmit! Museum für Kinder where kids make a portrait of themselves and their gang. It sits alongside KUNSTKNALL, the museum's exhibition of ceramics, photos, paintings and textiles by women artists from Berlin and beyond. Kids work at the museum's craft tables, so it suits anyone who likes making things with friends or family.
The youth company of CABUWAZI Tempelhof, 18 young artists, performs a new circus production about wanting to be yourself and still belong. Solo and group acts on Chinese pole, aerial silks, straps, hoop diving, wire, trapeze and contortion show both the joy of freedom and the pressure of being left out. Directed by Jeele Johannsen.
A one-way loop of about two kilometers through Tierpark Berlin after dark, lined with light installations set to music. Kids walk through glowing tunnels and past lit-up trees, and there is an ice rink to skate on. Food stands along the route serve mulled wine, hot drinks and snacks. Best for children who can manage a long evening walk in the cold.
A hands-on design workshop run by the Bauhaus-Archiv, inspired by pieces from its collection and by how design was taught at the Bauhaus. Kids and adults explore photography, drawing, material and pattern, craft techniques and color, using analog and digital tools. No experience needed.
NO GLOW is a circus show performed by the kids and teens who train at CABUWAZI, Berlin's youth circus. A girl stays behind in the big top after everyone leaves, finds out what the circus does at night, and asks who she is.
Acrobatics and juggling mix with theater and dance. It's the group's year-end show, so expect proud young performers and a crowd of families cheering them on.
D!E GÄNG is a kids' band that plays hip-hop, dancehall and ska, the music plenty of parents grew up on. Singer Ben Pavlidis (of Ohrbooten) started writing the songs with his daughter Chaja as a family project, and two albums later Chaja and Luna, no longer small kids themselves, front the band on stage.
Expect a loud, bouncy concert where the whole family is meant to get up and dance.
Berlin's big New Year's Eve party turns the square in front of the Brandenburg Gate into an open-air dance floor, with DJ sets, drinks and snacks. This year's motto is "Yeah 27". It is a crowd at a famous landmark, so it suits older kids who are fine with loud music and a late night.
Staatsoper für alle is a free open-air concert by the Staatskapelle Berlin on Bebelplatz, right beside the Staatsoper Unter den Linden. This edition marks the series' 20th anniversary, with general music director Christian Thielemann conducting Mendelssohn and Liszt.
It suits school-age kids who already enjoy orchestral music and can handle a big crowd.
The Pyronale is the unofficial world championship of fireworks. Six national teams fire music-timed shows over the Maifeld next to Berlin's Olympic Stadium, each night ending with a closing display. Gold, silver and bronze trophies, designed by Jette Joop, go to the best teams overall.
Waslala is a staffed adventure playground and children's farm in Altglienicke. Kids build their own wooden huts with real tools, light fires and climb, with educators keeping watch. The animal yard has ponies, sheep, a goat, rabbits and bees, and kids help feed and care for them.
It is a parent-free zone: parents don't stay, so it suits kids who are happy to play on their own.
Germany's oldest and largest public observatory, open since 1896 in the middle of Treptower Park. Its centerpiece is the Great Refractor, nicknamed the "sky cannon": at 21 meters and 130 tons, the longest movable refracting telescope in the world, and still working.
Inside are a museum of astronomy from Stonehenge to space telescopes, a giant iron meteorite, a 31-seat planetarium and the hall where Einstein lectured on relativity in 1915.
A hands-on history museum for kids and teens, run by the Tempelhof-Schöneberg district. Its main exhibition, Villa Global, is a house of 14 rooms, each furnished by a different Berliner, from a toddler to a grandmother to a rapper, with video interviews to watch.
An open studio and school-break workshops add crafts and making. It suits curious kids from about 10 into the teens.
Kolle 37 is a staffed adventure playground (Bauspielplatz) on about 4,000 square meters near Kollwitzplatz, open since 1990. Kids build their own wooden huts with real tools, make fires, work in the garden and help with the animals. Youth workers run projects in the pottery, the wood and felt workshop, the smithy and a music rehearsal room, and kids help decide what the projects are.
Built on the former no man's land of the Berlin Wall at Potsdamer Platz, the museum traces spying from ancient ciphers through the Cold War to cyber espionage. Kids send Morse code, encrypt messages at a digital Enigma station, test secret inks in an agent lab and hunt for hidden bugs. The two-course laser maze gives each player one minute and an infrared video of the run.
Two hills in Volkspark Friedrichshain were built from blown-up wartime flak bunkers and city rubble: Mont Klamott, the taller one, and the Kleiner Bunkerberg.
The marked sledding run is on the east slope of the Kleiner Bunkerberg, fenced on both sides, with a steep, bumpy start and a long runout at the bottom. Both hills have more open slopes, and each has a viewing platform looking over the city center.
Berolina Bowling is a 32-lane alley in a basement near Nollendorfplatz: 28 classic lanes, four VIP lanes in a private lounge, a bar and a kitchen.
Kids' birthday packages cover 90 minutes of bowling with bumpers on request, shoe hire, a decorated table, a sweets plate, a kids' meal (burger, nuggets or pizza) and a drink. Families can bring their own cake.
JUMP House Berlin is a 4,000 m² trampoline hall with 13 attractions under one roof. The standout is the Sky Ninja, an obstacle course 11 m up with a double zip line across the hall. Below it are open trampoline fields, challenge zones, team games and the Valo Arena, where teams take on video-game style challenges.
A good pick for a cold or rainy afternoon when kids need to burn off energy.
Under the motto "Pumpkin goes to Hollywood", more than 100,000 pumpkins dress up giant figures of Mickey Mouse, Harry Potter, Marilyn Monroe and Yoda. Kids hunt through 500 varieties from around the world, from a 9-gram mini to a bottle gourd over a meter long, and pose at a pumpkin pyramid. It all sits on the farm's playground grounds.
Winterquartier Berlin is a Christmas market at the Napoleon Komplex in Friedrichshain, with market huts, an ice rink and curling. Kids can skate, have a go at curling and catch the Christmas show for children in the cultural program.
It's a come-and-go outing. The market, rink and curling need no German; only the kids' show is spoken.
Christmas Garden Berlin turns the Botanical Garden in Dahlem into an evening walking trail lit by millions of lights, with light installations set to music. This winter is its 10th season, on a newly redesigned path.
Kids walk the loop at their own pace, with dining options along the way. It suits kids happy to be on their feet outdoors on a winter evening.
A white tent city on one of Berlin's most historic squares, lit by thousands of Christmas lights. Kids can wander past glass blowers and candle makers in the heated crafts tent, watch musicians, acrobats and fire performers on the stage, and warm up over Kaiserschmarren, sweet pancake strips. It gets busy, so it suits kids who enjoy a lively evening crowd.
Over 200 nonprofit organizations, associations, and clubs offer handmade items, wooden toys, candles, honey, jams, and crafted gifts across Richardplatz. Food vendors serve mulled wine, waffles, bratwurst, and international vegetarian and vegan specialties. Only charitable organizations participate; commercial vendors are excluded.
Kemi gets sent to a forest summer camp with half his class, including Marko, who turns kids into outsiders just because he can. When Marko targets Kemi's cabinmate Jörg, Kemi has to choose between staying quiet and stepping in.
Saša Stanišić's prize-winning novel becomes a big ensemble show with dance, a turning stage and a wolf with glowing eyes. It suits kids ready to talk about bullying afterward.
Potsdam's Dutch Quarter turns into a little Amsterdam for a spring weekend. Street bands march past brick houses and tulip beds, while Dutch craftspeople and flower sellers fill the lanes in traditional dress. It is a loose wander more than a program, best for kids who like music, crowds and watching things being made by hand.
Dozens of Berlin museums, memorials and planetariums stay open late on one night in August, with speedy tours, workshops, concerts and DJ sets. Each year has a theme; 2026's was crime, from art forgeries to cybercrime. One ticket covers every venue and the shuttle buses, historic S-Bahn trains and rickshaws that link them.
A reconstruction of a village from around 1200, built on the excavated site of a real 12th-century settlement. Across grounds the size of ten soccer fields, kids walk through thatched houses, storehouses, workshops, gardens and fields, and meet rare farm breeds such as Skudden sheep and the Düppel pasture pig.
On season weekends, volunteers in medieval dress cook, carve wood, work wool and demonstrate blacksmithing and pottery.
A former railway yard where woodland has grown over the tracks since the last trains ran in 1952. Kids can spot a 1940 steam locomotive, one of Germany's oldest turntables and the 50-meter water tower.
A raised steel walkway carries the 2.7 km loop through the nature reserve, past steel sculptures by the artist group ODIOUS. Graffiti artists paint the wall along the shaded Tälchenweg.
Billed as Germany's largest music theater for children and families, with about 100,000 visitors a year. Shows are sung and spoken in German, mixing live music with stories from picture books, fairy tales and classics like Emil und die Detektive.
There are three stages: a 480-seat main hall, a 150-seat studio, and a 60-seat tent stage upstairs built as a first theater outing for the youngest.
Boulderklub Kreuzberg is a bouldering gym with 1,300 square meters of floor: short walls over thick mats, no ropes or harnesses.
Kids climb in their own zone around a climbing ship, marked in yellow on the mats and kept apart from the adult walls, where grown-ups jump and fall from height. A parent stays beside them the whole time, so it is not a drop-off.
Egyptian and prehistoric archaeology fill this Museum Island building. The Egyptian route leads from royal portrait heads to the bust of Nefertiti, and the lower level covers everyday life, the afterlife and the gods.
Upper floors hold Schliemann's finds from Troy, the Berlin Gold Hat and the Le Moustier Neanderthal. It suits kids who like ancient Egypt or treasure; toddlers tend to tire before the top floor.
The memorial runs 1.4 km along Bernauer Straße, where the border split the street in two. Rusty steel rods trace the line of the Wall, and markers show escape tunnels and spots where people died trying to cross.
From the viewing tower at the Documentation Center, kids look down into the last preserved stretch of the death strip, watchtower included. Best with school-age kids who know some of the history.
Science Center Spectrum is the hands-on wing of the Deutsches Technikmuseum, a building of more than 150 experiment stations that visitors are meant to touch and test. Kids light up a plasma tube, set a Newton's cradle clacking and cast colored shadows on the wall.
The stations are grouped by theme: light and vision, electricity and magnetism, heat, force and energy, mechanics and motion, and music and sound.
Kinderbauernhof Pinke-Panke is a volunteer-run children's farm and supervised adventure playground on the edge of Bürgerpark. Around 70 animals live here, including donkeys, sheep, goats, mini pigs, geese, rabbits and hens.
Staff help kids with the afternoon feeding, and there are workshops for wood, soapstone, wool and bike repairs, plus a building playground, a vegetable garden and a campfire. Expect a scrappy, hands-on farm rather than a tidy petting zoo.
Jugendfarm Moritzhof is a children's farm on the former Wall strip at the north end of Mauerpark, in Prenzlauer Berg. Kids help feed and care for goats, sheep, chickens, rabbits and guinea pigs, tend the garden beds and cook with what they harvest.
Staff also teach old crafts: felting, spinning, pottery, basket weaving and blacksmithing. The kids help decide which animals they look after and which projects come next.
The Computerspielemuseum traces video games from Pong and Computer Space to today, with more than 300 exhibits and many playable classics. Kids can try a 1980s-style arcade, game on old consoles in living rooms set up like the 1970s, 80s and 90s, work a giant controller, and browse the Wall of Hardware's 70-plus devices.
It suits kids who already play games; toddlers will find little to do.
The Rixdorfer Höhe is a hill built after World War II from about 700,000 cubic meters of rubble, rising 22 meters above the surrounding Hasenheide park. When snow falls, most families sled the short, gentle run down in the valley. Bolder kids take the winding run of about 100 meters that spirals down from the top. The park also has playgrounds, an animal enclosure and an outdoor cinema.
The Insulaner is a 78-meter hill built from World War II rubble, now wooded and crossed by footpaths. After a snowfall its west side holds one of the city's longest sledding runs, about 220 meters, with a smaller beginner slope at the bottom for younger kids.
The Wilhelm-Foerster observatory sits on the summit, the Planetarium am Insulaner at its foot, and there is a mini golf course on the hill.
EXIT runs themed escape rooms where a team has 66 minutes to find keys, crack codes and open doors while a game master sends hints.
Monster Party is the kids' room: a colorful bus ride to Monster City to find six missing monster children, with no climbing, crawling or scares. Older kids can try the fantasy room Magic Alley or Jungle Games. Games run in English and German.
The museum is built around its dinosaur hall, where kids crane up at Giraffatitan, the largest mounted dinosaur skeleton in the world. Tristan Otto, an exceptionally well-preserved T. rex, and the Berlin Archaeopteryx, an early bird fossil, are on show too.
Other galleries cover minerals, the solar system, evolution and taxidermy animals, plus the Wet Collection: about a million specimens in jars of alcohol.
A Christmas market running through Spandau's old town, with stalls selling roasted almonds, bratwurst and mulled wine. Kids can meet Santa Claus and pick up cotton candy. Families can try the two ice stock lanes on Reformationsplatz.
A Christmas market in front of Charlottenburg Palace, with craft stalls, food stands and street musicians among fir trees and lit decorations. Once it gets dark, a light-mapping show plays across the palace facade.
Kids ride the carousels and watch the palace light up, while parents browse handmade gifts and grab mulled wine or gingerbread. It suits younger kids who like lights and rides.
Berlinale Generation is the Berlin International Film Festival's section for young audiences. Kids and teens watch features, documentaries and animation from around the world, often with filmmakers and their young stars in the room for questions afterward. Children's and Youth Juries, made up of young viewers, choose the winners of the Crystal Bears.
Germany's only nationwide performing arts festival for young audiences, held every two years since 1991. Ten productions from across the country include a toddler piece about a baobab tree, a monster show, a dance work and teen dramas. Some are made for the youngest viewers, others for 12 and up.
FEZ-Berlin is a non-profit children's, youth and family center in the Wuhlheide woods. Inside are the Alice children's museum with hands-on exhibitions, the Astrid-Lindgren-Bühne children's theater, orbitall (a space center modeled on the ISS), and an indoor pool with a teaching pool and diving towers.
Outside, the park has a giant rocket playground, a dragon playground, a wooden climbing playground, an eco garden, and boats and pedal cars to rent.
The Grunewaldturm is a 55-meter red-brick tower from 1899, built on the Karlsberg hill in the Grunewald forest as a memorial to Emperor Wilhelm I. Kids climb about 200 steps to a platform 36 meters up, with views over the treetops and the Havel, as far as Potsdam on a clear day.
The emperor's marble statue stands in the hall, and a restaurant terrace sits at the foot.
The children's and teens' library inside the Amerika-Gedenkbibliothek holds about 130,000 books and other media, the largest collection of its kind in Germany.
It has three parts: a children's library and a teen library for reading for fun, plus a learning center with nonfiction and study help. The kids' wing sits in the glass-walled annex by the garden, where it has been since 1957.
Der Kegel is a climbing gym built around a former bunker, now an 18-meter cone-shaped climbing tower on the RAW grounds in Friedrichshain. Around it sit 550 square meters of indoor and outdoor bouldering up to 4 meters, across every grade, plus a small roof terrace with a snack bar.
Rope climbing on the tower is lead-only with your own rope, so most families come to boulder.
Teufelsberg is a hill built from World War II rubble in the Grunewald, and on top sit the ruins of a Cold War listening station run by US and British intelligence. Its radar domes and walls now hold one of Europe's largest street art galleries, and a 360-degree viewing platform looks over the city.
Kids can follow a spy puzzle trail across the site, with a prize at the end.
Aquarium Berlin fills three floors of the historic building at the Zoo. The ground floor holds the fish: blacktip reef sharks, a coral reef, seahorses, octopuses and drifting jellyfish.
The first floor is reptiles, with snakes, iguanas, a chameleon and the glass-walled Tropical Hall, where a wooden bridge crosses the crocodile river. The small top floor has glowing scorpions, poison frogs and leafcutter ants farming fungus gardens.
A three-deck play ship on the Spree bank, nicknamed the Black Pearl. Kids climb and balance their way between decks, ride a 5-meter spiral tube slide, cook in the galley play kitchen and play table tennis on deck.
Ramps reach part of the ship, and pieces like a marble run, speaking tubes and a memory wall are built so kids with and without disabilities can play together.
The Humboldt Forum fills the rebuilt Berlin Palace with the Ethnological Collections and Asian Art on the top two floors, the BERLIN GLOBAL exhibition on the first floor, and a changing exhibition on the ground floor.
The Palace Cellar, Sculpture Hall and a Video Panorama sit alongside, and a roof terrace about 30 meters up looks out over Museum Island, the Brandenburg Gate and Alexanderplatz.
Alte Fasanerie is a former pheasantry turned open farmyard on the rural northern edge of the city, run by the Elisabethstift youth charity. Kids can say hello to goats, alpacas, chickens, pheasants and horses, walk round the pond and the herb and flower garden, and browse the Bücherkuh, a courtyard box of kids' books to borrow. It suits a slow, quiet afternoon more than a big day out.
The DDR Museum shows daily life in East Germany through original objects visitors are allowed to handle. Kids sit behind the wheel of a Trabi driving simulator and walk through a furnished prefab apartment whose children's room is stocked with East German toys to play with.
Other rooms cover the Wall, the Stasi and a kindergarten corner. The Stasi section suits older kids more than toddlers.
A 30-meter dome built in 1987, with a 307-seat hall where fulldome projection fills the whole ceiling with stars, planets and science films. Children's shows run alongside science programs, and a separate cinema screens kids' films.
The foyer holds a free hands-on exhibition: touchscreen planets, a moon relief to run your hands over, and an immersive view from the International Space Station.
Futurium is a museum about how people might live in the future, on the Spree between the main station and the Reichstag. The exhibition is split into three thinking spaces, human, nature and technology, full of interactive stations.
In the Futurium Lab, kids can craft, solder and program at hands-on workshops, and the rooftop Skywalk opens when the weather allows.
SPRUNG.RAUM is a 2,400-square-meter trampoline hall in Marienfelde with more than 50 jump beds. Kids bounce on the free-jump field, practice flips into the foam pit, drop from a trapeze onto a giant airbag, play trampoline dodgeball and run a ninja parkour course. The Grand.Master bed sends confident jumpers up to 6 meters. Trainers with parkour and acrobatics backgrounds help with first tricks.
Teufelsberg is a hill built from World War II rubble in the Grunewald forest, topping out at 120 meters above sea level, the city's second-highest point. When snow falls, families sled and snowboard down its open slopes, which once had a ski lift and an official sled run.
The old run is now closed and partly fenced off. The abandoned US listening station sits on the summit.
A children's farm inside Görlitzer Park, run since 1981 by a neighborhood association as a supervised youth center. Kids meet goats, donkeys, ponies, rabbits, geese and chickens, roam the yard, and toddlers get their own corner with a sandpit, play equipment and a water playground in summer.
The clay-built community house hosts clubs during the week and opens to everyone on Sundays for a family café with waffles and hot chocolate.
Magic Mountain is a big climbing hall with roped walls, bouldering areas and an outdoor climbing garden. Autobelay stations let a first-timer climb without a partner after a short briefing at the desk.
Kids can start with a trainer-led taster session, climb alongside their parents in a family session, or join term-long kids training and holiday camps. It suits active kids who like heights.
A large technology museum with a locomotive shed full of historic trains, a shipping hall where kids hoist sails and steer a boat into harbor, and an aviation wing with the "Candy Bomber" plane up on the roof terrace.
The Science Center Spectrum, on the same ticket, has more than 150 hands-on experiments. Outside, the museum park has a playground and picnic areas.
Ich & Herr Meyer are two bald musicians who have spent ten years making songs for kids and their parents. They sing and rap in German about everyday family life: small injustices between siblings, the freedom of a stay with Grandma and Grandpa, AI, and a first crush.
Some songs take on climate and sustainability too. It suits kids who like pop and hip-hop more than nursery songs.
A shorter, kid-sized version of the opera house's backstage tour. Children walk past the giant stage sets waiting in storage, look down into the orchestra pit and stand on the main stage where singers perform their arias.
Along the way they see how stagehands, the props team and other departments get a show ready. It suits curious school-age kids who like to know how things work.
A new retelling of Pinocchio by playwright Philipp Löhle, staged as a musical family play. Woodcarver Geppetto wants a child, and the puppet he carves wakes up and races off to school, distracted by the fox and the cat and a toy land where anything goes. Geppetto has to set out after him. A story about parents as much as kids.
A theatrical treasure hunt where children help restore damaged books from a secret archive. Actors Yana Lova and Cem Göktas perform "Pippi Becomes a Treasure Seeker" by Astrid Lindgren, with audiences identifying missing words and phrases to rescue the story from a hungry bookworm. Each monthly installment features a different classic; this production is the second in the series.
A lively, musical and funny take on sex education, in a gently updated version of the Theater Rote Grütze classic. On stage: girls and boys, affection and desire, feeling ashamed, and how babies get into the belly and back out again.
Director Göksen Güntel's staging also shows kids they can say no when they don't like something. It suits families looking for an easy way into these conversations.
Laura is six, furious at being blamed for something she didn't do, and sets off on her bike to see the world, starting with her own Berlin apartment building. Next door she finds odd neighbors, new kinds of families and unusual life stories, while her mom searches for her. A new staging of a GRIPS favorite, with live musicians, songs and plenty of humor. Performed in German.
A Christmas funfair on Landsberger Allee with 26 rides, from a 45-meter Ferris wheel with enclosed gondolas to the 85-meter Lion Tower drop and the new Crazy Roulette. Twelve are family and kids' rides, including a mini roller coaster, carousels and a fire-fighter fun house. Younger kids will be happiest there and on the Ferris wheel; the big thrill rides suit older kids and teens.
The playground sits in Weinbergspark, a hillside park on the site of old vineyards. The toddler area has a climbing tower and slide that wheelchairs can reach, plus a nest swing, a carousel and a spinning disc on firm, step-free surfacing.
Older kids get a rubber-surfaced ball cage, ping-pong tables and a wooden deck to hang out on. The rest of the ground is sand, so a bucket and spade earn their place.
Volkspark Rehberge, in Wedding, covers 115 hectares of meadows and woodland, laid out as a landscape park in the 1920s. There are several playgrounds, a wild boar enclosure on the western side, a chain of three small ponds (no swimming), big sports grounds and kilometers of paths where kids learn to ride a bike. In winter, the long sledding hill draws families from the surrounding neighborhoods.
A large open-air flea market on the edge of Mauerpark, with roughly 400 to 450 stalls of secondhand clothes, furniture, records, lamps, jewelry, handmade goods and used toys. A food court in the middle has seating, so lunch fits between rounds of browsing.
Kids with a bit of pocket money can hunt for toys and old trinkets. It draws big crowds of locals and tourists, so keep young kids close.
A public pool complex run by Berliner Bäder. The indoor hall has a 50-meter pool with 1-meter and 3-meter diving boards and a shallow non-swimmers' pool with a kids' slide.
In summer the outdoor side opens with two 50-meter pools, a paddling pool, another slide, a big lawn and a playground. In winter an inflatable dome covers the outdoor pools for extra swimming space.
Stadtbad Neukölln is a public indoor pool more than a hundred years old, with two halls lined by 7-meter columns, arcades and mosaics. The big hall holds a 25-meter pool and the small hall a 19-meter pool, and both have a shallow non-swimmer area. Depth runs from 65cm to 2.4 meters.
It suits kids who can swim and want room, and younger ones happy in the shallow end.
Ostbloc is a bouldering hall of over 1,000 square meters by the Rummelsburger Bucht, open since 2010. Bouldering means climbing at jump-off height with no ropes or harness, over thick mats, at every difficulty level.
Kids under 8 have their own Kinderland area. Under-12s who want the main mats first take the Boulderführerschein, a course done with a parent that covers the hall rules.
The Müggelturm is a 30-meter observation tower on the Kleiner Müggelberg, in the forested Müggelberge hills. Kids climb 126 steps to a viewing platform where, on a clear day, the view runs about 60 kilometers, from the Müggelsee to Alexanderplatz and BER Airport.
A restaurant with a sun terrace sits at the base, and hiking trails, cycle routes, a downhill trail and a nature trail loop through the forest.
The glass dome on the roof of the Reichstag Building, home of the German parliament, has a spiral ramp that winds up around a mirrored cone to an open top. Kids can look down through the glass into the plenary chamber, then walk the roof terrace for views over the government district and city landmarks.
Audioguides on the terrace come in twelve languages, with a children's version in German.
A large park of themed gardens from around the world: Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Balinese, Oriental, Italian Renaissance, English and Jewish gardens, plus a hedge maze and a labyrinth to run through.
A cable car glides up to 35 meters above the Wuhletal valley to the Kienberg hill. The playgrounds follow Erich Kästner's book "The 35th of May", with a climbing whale, a water forest and giant wooden ants.
Eisstadion Neukölln is the district's open-air artificial ice rink, at the edge of the Werner-Seelenbinder-Sportpark by Tempelhofer Feld. The public rink is about 65 by 39 meters, next to a separate competition rink used by hockey and figure skating clubs.
A rental shop on site rents skates in all sizes, plus double-blade gliders for kids up to 1 meter tall. Beginners can join the local skating schools that teach here.
Tierpark Berlin spreads across 160 hectares of parkland around the 18th-century Friedrichsfelde manor house, making it Europe's largest animal park. Kids can watch tigers in the renovated Alfred Brehm House, spot red pandas and snow leopards on a cloud-forest trail, and see giraffes and zebras on an African savanna.
Between animals there's a petting zoo with goats and ponies, a seaside-themed water play area, and the Fabelwald woodland playground.
Germany's oldest zoo, opened in 1844, keeps around 20,000 animals and more species than any other zoo in the world. Kids can watch Germany's only giant pandas, plus elephants and pygmy hippos, and pet goats at the petting zoo.
Many animals live in indoor houses, so it works on a cold day too. The aquarium by the Elefantentor gate needs a combined ticket.
A private museum about the Berlin Wall, open since 1963 beside the old border crossing. Its rooms hold the real things people used to get out of East Berlin: repurposed cars including an Isetta, a homemade hot-air balloon, a mini submarine and motorized hang-gliders.
The displays are mostly photos and text, so it suits school-age kids who already know some of the story.
A hands-on children's museum in a former factory on Osloer Strasse in Wedding. The current exhibition, TALENTOPIA, is about finding what each kid is good at: building cardboard-tube cities with a construction crane, solving analog programming puzzles in a control center, painting at an art materials bar, playing word games, and making music from bottles and dishwasher parts.
There is no maze, despite the name.
Mauerpark sits on the former Berlin Wall death strip, and 300 meters of the Wall still stand along its east side, covered in street art. An amphitheater set into the slope hosts open-air karaoke on summer Sundays.
Up north are the Moritzhof children's farm and a 15-meter climbing wall, and kids have several playgrounds to choose from, the biggest built in 2020.
A nearly 100-year-old public pool, reopened after a partial renovation. The ground floor has a 53-meter slide and a toddler area with its own small slide, massage jets, bubblers and a paddling pool. An outdoor pool has a current channel.
Upstairs is a 25-meter lane pool with 1-meter and 3-meter diving boards, a learner pool and a saltwater pool.
Botanic Garden Berlin covers 43 hectares in Dahlem and grows around 20,000 plant species. The Great Tropical Greenhouse, an Art Nouveau glasshouse, stays warm all year and holds giant bamboo, and the cactus house has columns taller than an adult. Outside, long paths loop past ponds, an arboretum and beds that group plants by where in the world they grow.
STERN+KREIS runs Berlin's passenger boats from piers across the city. From Treptow harbor by Treptower Park, the bridge trip loops the Landwehrkanal and the Spree through river locks, past the Technikmuseum, the Reichstag, Museum Island and the East Side Gallery.
Other boats head southeast past Köpenick's old town to the open water of the Müggelsee. Snacks and drinks are sold on board; outside food is not allowed.
The Fernsehturm is the 368-meter TV tower opposite Alexanderplatz station, and its observation deck at 203 meters is the highest viewpoint in the city. Kids can pick out the Brandenburg Gate, the Reichstag and the Spree from the 360-degree windows, then try Berlin's Odyssee, a virtual reality trip through nine centuries of city history. The Sphere restaurant up top revolves while you eat.
Sommerbad Pankow is a public summer pool with a 50m lane pool and a diving pool with 3m, 5m and 7.5m towers. Kids head for the two slides, a high-speed slide, and a leisure pool with a current channel and water cannons, while toddlers have their own paddling pool.
Sunbathing terraces on six levels sit under three shade sails, and there are ping-pong tables and a snack bar.
Strandbad Plötzensee is a privately run lake beach on the Plötzensee in Wedding. Sand slopes into the water, a long wooden jetty is the spot for jumping in, and there's a water slide. On land, kids get a playground with a big rope climbing frame, a bouncy castle, volleyball courts and table tennis. A lake café, beach restaurant and pizzeria cover lunch, and lifeguards watch the water.
Erika-Heß-Eisstadion is Berlin's third-largest ice rink, with a covered rink and an open-air rink side by side on Müllerstraße in Wedding. The open-air ice reopened for public skating in 2026 after years closed.
In winter it draws neighborhood families and skaters from across the city. The covered rink keeps sessions going when it rains, and the open-air rink is the one to pick on a crisp, dry day.
Horst-Dohm-Eisstadion is a large public ice rink run by the Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf district, with room for first-timers and confident skaters on the same ice. A rental shop on site lends skates and sharpens blades, so kids without their own pair can still go.
The restaurant inside the stadium is the place to warm up between laps.
Prokofiev's musical fairy tale about Peter, an orphan boy who leaves the garden gate open, and the adventure that follows with his grandfather, a hunter, a cat, a duck, a bird and a wolf. Six musicians play it live while a narrator tells the story in German.
It is the flagship family concert of the Kammerorchester Unter den Linden, and suits kids who can follow spoken German.
A guided walk through the museum's DINOSAURS! special exhibition, made for families. Kids meet dinosaurs from three geological eras: Tristan Otto, one of the best-preserved T. rex skeletons in the world, the 13-meter Giraffatitan and the Archaeopteryx, the world's most famous fossil.
The guide speaks German, so it suits kids who can follow along in German best.
A group of fans is on a backstage tour before a big concert when the band gets locked in its dressing room. The fans know the songs, and some can play, but nobody wants to stand in the spotlight.
The collective hannsjana uses humor and plenty of live music to look at shyness, stage fright and self-confidence. It suits quiet kids, and the loud ones around them.
A musical fairy tale by Thomas Sutter. The little harmonica feels too small and too plain for the big concert hall, until it meets its relatives the accordion, the jaw harp and the Chinese sheng, and finds its own sound.
Soloists Wu Wei, Sören Birke and Mikael Yakut play all four instruments and show how they differ, and why they are one family: each sounds through a free reed.
A new musical play from Theater an der Parkaue (Chaos der Gefühle) about what love feels like. A question mark goes looking for answers and meets a cloud floating around in love, a hyper hormone, a candy-loving strawberry and Frustration.
It is funny, full of songs written for the show, and lands on self-love and the courage to ask questions. Suits kids starting to notice crushes.
Storytellers Nicola Knappe and Maria Carmela Marinelli follow a block of stone, cut from a mountain near Berlin, that became the figures in and around the Humboldt Forum, like Hercules and Jupiter. They weave its adventures together with myths from antiquity, told with humor in German and Italian side by side.
It suits kids who can follow a spoken story in at least one of the two languages.
Bubales is a Jewish puppet theater, and this is its show for Hanukkah, the Jewish festival of lights. Shlomo is given a mysterious wonder lamp from Istanbul, and three funny spirits jump out to tell of a miracle of light in the Temple in Jerusalem.
With Jewish humor, a candle band and a hyperactive dreidel, it tells the holiday's customs and its old story.
A lively, funny children's version of Mozart's Magic Flute. Andreas Peer Kähler wrote the script, plays the piano and steps in as Mozart himself, guiding kids through the story. Ensemble Papamino, with singers from the Deutsche Oper Berlin chorus, sings and acts it.
It suits kids who follow German and are curious about opera.
A lantern evening at the neighborhood library in Prenzlauer Berg. Kids start by making their own colorful paper lantern with Nadine, who brings all the materials.
Then Rumpelmärchen, a Berlin fairy-tale theater ensemble, tell the story of a phoenix reborn from its ashes and turn it into a real fire show out in the courtyard. A good pick for kids who like crafts and a bit of drama.
A colored shadow-puppet version of Andersen's Thumbelina, performed by puppeteer Thomas Mierau. Thumbelina is born in a flower and travels past a toad, cheerful fish, a dancing butterfly and a rich mole who wants her in his palace, until a swallow carries her to a land of flowers. Gentle and poetic, with songs. Performed in German.
Kids and grown-ups build a pop-up box together, filled with pictures of the people, pets, toys or places they love most. Everything is made at the table from craft materials, and the finished treasure box goes home with you. It is open drop-in making, so families work at their own pace.
Christmas is coming, but nothing goes to plan for Pettersson and Findus: no tree, no festive meal, no firewood, and then Pettersson sprains his foot. A Christmas elf called Kirsi has an idea that could change everything.
Theater des Lachens plays it as a warm, funny story about friendship and helping each other out. It is performed in German, so it suits kids who follow spoken German.
Staatsballett Berlin opens its rehearsal studios at the Deutsche Oper to families for a hands-on morning. Dance teachers explain how ballet works, then kids and their grown-ups try some steps themselves.
At the end, everyone watches the company's professional dancers up close during their daily morning class. A good fit for kids who like to move or are curious about what happens behind the stage.
Eight to twelve is the age when kids want to build, test and perform things themselves, and get bored fast when they can't. We pull together the hands-on workshops, science labs, circus and theater shows, author readings and places across the city that are set up for that age, not for toddlers.
A hands-on craft workshop where kids build paper torches inspired by Minecraft that light up. They learn how a simple electric circuit works and wire it with conductive tape, then shape the torch from colored and see-through paper however they like. Each kid takes their torch home, ready for an evening walk in the dark. Run by the library with the paper-electronics makers Volt Paper Scissors.
Bauchgefühl is a poetic play about two people who perceive the world differently and keep bumping into each other in the same office. One rainy day, objects come to life, words turn into movement, signs into sound and images into crackling descriptions.
It is made for deaf and hearing, blind, visually impaired and sighted audiences together, so a kid sees how many ways there are to understand someone.
A puppet and object theater take on Andersen's Little Match Girl, set in today's Berlin. On New Year's Eve, old Frau Friedel walks the snowy streets of a city that has changed around her, and she has lost a lot along the way. In the glow of each match she strikes, things look different. A detailed Berlin street set carries much of the story, so it suits school-age kids who enjoy a quiet, thoughtful show.
Kids and grown-ups don't sit and watch here: they share the stage with four professional krump dancers and help decide how the piece unfolds.
Krump is a street dance born in Los Angeles as a response to inequality, built on community and backing each other. Choreographer Janne Gregor turns it into a group game, so every show comes out different. A good fit for movers, less so for shy watchers.
Traumkeramik Julion is the Kreuzberg studio where potter Julia Arnold has made cheerful, dishwasher-safe tableware since 1999. For birthdays the studio is decorated and kids model clay together, then each picks a project of their own: a funny animal, a trinket box, hearts or a candle holder (no everyday dishes). Between rounds there is cake, presents and a guitar sing-along while parents head out for coffee nearby.
A monthly evening program where the Labyrinth Kindermuseum turns off the lights and kids explore its TALENTOPIA exhibition with headlamps, UV light and glowing materials. Across six stations they build, craft, dance and dress up, trying out movement, music, touch, logic, language and art. It ends with the big marble run lit up and glowing paper planes sailing through the dark museum. Parents drop off and pick up.
A special exhibition at the Deutsches Technikmuseum, planned with 60 Berlin schoolkids as curators. Their models of a future city sit at the center, surrounded by prototypes and ideas for housing, energy, climate and nature.
Kids can build their own city in kinetic sand, test a sensor trash can, match animals to habitats and step in front of the Invisible Shield. It suits curious primary-school kids best.
Once the Museum für Naturkunde closes for the day, visitors sneak through its dark exhibition rooms by flashlight. A guide leads the search for animals of the night, and kids explore the exhibitions.
It suits curious kids who follow spoken German and are happy in the dark.
Families look for angels in the Gemäldegalerie's old paintings: some play music, some bring news, some fight, some pray. Then everyone makes their own winged angel figure.
A drop-in craft workshop inspired by the biting, funny works of artist Maurizio Cattelan. Kids make pop-up cards that bring cheeky little figures to life, then post the caricature to someone who needs to hear it or leave it somewhere in the city for a stranger to find. Suits kids who like making things and have a sharp sense of humor.
Czech illustrator Lucie Lučanská opens with a reading from her picture book, which follows a walk from a village into the forest and back, told one sense at a time.
Then kids draw their own route to the library on a very long roll of paper: what they saw, heard, touched, smelled and tasted, mixing in collage and rubbings. It suits kids who like to draw and take their time.
A guided family talk through the special exhibition on Genghis Khan and the Mongols. Kids meet the animals of the steppe nomads, come face to face with brightly painted grave guardian figures and travel back to the Great Khan's palace in Karakorum, the Mongol capital.
The big moment is a real yurt, where kids step inside and decide whether it could be home. It suits curious kids with big questions.
Families explore the sound rooms of composer and artist Ryuichi Sakamoto, where hearing, seeing and feeling blur together. Back in the studio, everyone turns what they felt into small movement exercises, and families can design a Family Sunday poster of their impressions. Best for kids who like to listen, move and make things.
Tur Tur Theater's modern take on the musical classic. Dorothy lands in the land beyond the rainbow and sets off to find the Wizard of Oz, picking up a scarecrow who wants more brains, a tin man who lost his heart and a lion afraid of everything.
Sophie Ammann and Alexander Altomirianos play it as a story about friendship, made for laughing, crying and thinking.
A hands-on family workshop from the Museum für Islamische Kunst. Families work together on their own vest: a mesh fabric becomes the canvas, decorated with colorful thread, beads and child-safe needles, using patterns from the museum's collection or straight from imagination. Kids pick up simple knotting and embroidery stitches along the way, and the finished vest goes home with them. Best for kids patient enough to thread a needle.
Grüne Woche is a huge indoor food and farming fair across the Messe Berlin halls. Around 1,600 exhibitors offer tastings of regional and international specialties, from fruit and vegetables to fish, meat, wine and beer. Kids can try hands-on activities on farming and food, and there is a family room for breaks. It is closer to a trade fair than a kids' festival, so it suits curious school-age children best.
A hands-on craft workshop at MACHmit! Museum für Kinder where kids make a portrait of themselves and their gang. It sits alongside KUNSTKNALL, the museum's exhibition of ceramics, photos, paintings and textiles by women artists from Berlin and beyond. Kids work at the museum's craft tables, so it suits anyone who likes making things with friends or family.
The youth company of CABUWAZI Tempelhof, 18 young artists, performs a new circus production about wanting to be yourself and still belong. Solo and group acts on Chinese pole, aerial silks, straps, hoop diving, wire, trapeze and contortion show both the joy of freedom and the pressure of being left out. Directed by Jeele Johannsen.
A one-way loop of about two kilometers through Tierpark Berlin after dark, lined with light installations set to music. Kids walk through glowing tunnels and past lit-up trees, and there is an ice rink to skate on. Food stands along the route serve mulled wine, hot drinks and snacks. Best for children who can manage a long evening walk in the cold.
A hands-on design workshop run by the Bauhaus-Archiv, inspired by pieces from its collection and by how design was taught at the Bauhaus. Kids and adults explore photography, drawing, material and pattern, craft techniques and color, using analog and digital tools. No experience needed.
NO GLOW is a circus show performed by the kids and teens who train at CABUWAZI, Berlin's youth circus. A girl stays behind in the big top after everyone leaves, finds out what the circus does at night, and asks who she is.
Acrobatics and juggling mix with theater and dance. It's the group's year-end show, so expect proud young performers and a crowd of families cheering them on.
D!E GÄNG is a kids' band that plays hip-hop, dancehall and ska, the music plenty of parents grew up on. Singer Ben Pavlidis (of Ohrbooten) started writing the songs with his daughter Chaja as a family project, and two albums later Chaja and Luna, no longer small kids themselves, front the band on stage.
Expect a loud, bouncy concert where the whole family is meant to get up and dance.
Berlin's big New Year's Eve party turns the square in front of the Brandenburg Gate into an open-air dance floor, with DJ sets, drinks and snacks. This year's motto is "Yeah 27". It is a crowd at a famous landmark, so it suits older kids who are fine with loud music and a late night.
Staatsoper für alle is a free open-air concert by the Staatskapelle Berlin on Bebelplatz, right beside the Staatsoper Unter den Linden. This edition marks the series' 20th anniversary, with general music director Christian Thielemann conducting Mendelssohn and Liszt.
It suits school-age kids who already enjoy orchestral music and can handle a big crowd.
The Pyronale is the unofficial world championship of fireworks. Six national teams fire music-timed shows over the Maifeld next to Berlin's Olympic Stadium, each night ending with a closing display. Gold, silver and bronze trophies, designed by Jette Joop, go to the best teams overall.
Waslala is a staffed adventure playground and children's farm in Altglienicke. Kids build their own wooden huts with real tools, light fires and climb, with educators keeping watch. The animal yard has ponies, sheep, a goat, rabbits and bees, and kids help feed and care for them.
It is a parent-free zone: parents don't stay, so it suits kids who are happy to play on their own.
Germany's oldest and largest public observatory, open since 1896 in the middle of Treptower Park. Its centerpiece is the Great Refractor, nicknamed the "sky cannon": at 21 meters and 130 tons, the longest movable refracting telescope in the world, and still working.
Inside are a museum of astronomy from Stonehenge to space telescopes, a giant iron meteorite, a 31-seat planetarium and the hall where Einstein lectured on relativity in 1915.
A hands-on history museum for kids and teens, run by the Tempelhof-Schöneberg district. Its main exhibition, Villa Global, is a house of 14 rooms, each furnished by a different Berliner, from a toddler to a grandmother to a rapper, with video interviews to watch.
An open studio and school-break workshops add crafts and making. It suits curious kids from about 10 into the teens.
Kolle 37 is a staffed adventure playground (Bauspielplatz) on about 4,000 square meters near Kollwitzplatz, open since 1990. Kids build their own wooden huts with real tools, make fires, work in the garden and help with the animals. Youth workers run projects in the pottery, the wood and felt workshop, the smithy and a music rehearsal room, and kids help decide what the projects are.
Built on the former no man's land of the Berlin Wall at Potsdamer Platz, the museum traces spying from ancient ciphers through the Cold War to cyber espionage. Kids send Morse code, encrypt messages at a digital Enigma station, test secret inks in an agent lab and hunt for hidden bugs. The two-course laser maze gives each player one minute and an infrared video of the run.
Two hills in Volkspark Friedrichshain were built from blown-up wartime flak bunkers and city rubble: Mont Klamott, the taller one, and the Kleiner Bunkerberg.
The marked sledding run is on the east slope of the Kleiner Bunkerberg, fenced on both sides, with a steep, bumpy start and a long runout at the bottom. Both hills have more open slopes, and each has a viewing platform looking over the city center.
Berolina Bowling is a 32-lane alley in a basement near Nollendorfplatz: 28 classic lanes, four VIP lanes in a private lounge, a bar and a kitchen.
Kids' birthday packages cover 90 minutes of bowling with bumpers on request, shoe hire, a decorated table, a sweets plate, a kids' meal (burger, nuggets or pizza) and a drink. Families can bring their own cake.
JUMP House Berlin is a 4,000 m² trampoline hall with 13 attractions under one roof. The standout is the Sky Ninja, an obstacle course 11 m up with a double zip line across the hall. Below it are open trampoline fields, challenge zones, team games and the Valo Arena, where teams take on video-game style challenges.
A good pick for a cold or rainy afternoon when kids need to burn off energy.
Under the motto "Pumpkin goes to Hollywood", more than 100,000 pumpkins dress up giant figures of Mickey Mouse, Harry Potter, Marilyn Monroe and Yoda. Kids hunt through 500 varieties from around the world, from a 9-gram mini to a bottle gourd over a meter long, and pose at a pumpkin pyramid. It all sits on the farm's playground grounds.
Winterquartier Berlin is a Christmas market at the Napoleon Komplex in Friedrichshain, with market huts, an ice rink and curling. Kids can skate, have a go at curling and catch the Christmas show for children in the cultural program.
It's a come-and-go outing. The market, rink and curling need no German; only the kids' show is spoken.
Christmas Garden Berlin turns the Botanical Garden in Dahlem into an evening walking trail lit by millions of lights, with light installations set to music. This winter is its 10th season, on a newly redesigned path.
Kids walk the loop at their own pace, with dining options along the way. It suits kids happy to be on their feet outdoors on a winter evening.
A white tent city on one of Berlin's most historic squares, lit by thousands of Christmas lights. Kids can wander past glass blowers and candle makers in the heated crafts tent, watch musicians, acrobats and fire performers on the stage, and warm up over Kaiserschmarren, sweet pancake strips. It gets busy, so it suits kids who enjoy a lively evening crowd.
Over 200 nonprofit organizations, associations, and clubs offer handmade items, wooden toys, candles, honey, jams, and crafted gifts across Richardplatz. Food vendors serve mulled wine, waffles, bratwurst, and international vegetarian and vegan specialties. Only charitable organizations participate; commercial vendors are excluded.
Kemi gets sent to a forest summer camp with half his class, including Marko, who turns kids into outsiders just because he can. When Marko targets Kemi's cabinmate Jörg, Kemi has to choose between staying quiet and stepping in.
Saša Stanišić's prize-winning novel becomes a big ensemble show with dance, a turning stage and a wolf with glowing eyes. It suits kids ready to talk about bullying afterward.
Potsdam's Dutch Quarter turns into a little Amsterdam for a spring weekend. Street bands march past brick houses and tulip beds, while Dutch craftspeople and flower sellers fill the lanes in traditional dress. It is a loose wander more than a program, best for kids who like music, crowds and watching things being made by hand.
Dozens of Berlin museums, memorials and planetariums stay open late on one night in August, with speedy tours, workshops, concerts and DJ sets. Each year has a theme; 2026's was crime, from art forgeries to cybercrime. One ticket covers every venue and the shuttle buses, historic S-Bahn trains and rickshaws that link them.
A reconstruction of a village from around 1200, built on the excavated site of a real 12th-century settlement. Across grounds the size of ten soccer fields, kids walk through thatched houses, storehouses, workshops, gardens and fields, and meet rare farm breeds such as Skudden sheep and the Düppel pasture pig.
On season weekends, volunteers in medieval dress cook, carve wood, work wool and demonstrate blacksmithing and pottery.
A former railway yard where woodland has grown over the tracks since the last trains ran in 1952. Kids can spot a 1940 steam locomotive, one of Germany's oldest turntables and the 50-meter water tower.
A raised steel walkway carries the 2.7 km loop through the nature reserve, past steel sculptures by the artist group ODIOUS. Graffiti artists paint the wall along the shaded Tälchenweg.
Billed as Germany's largest music theater for children and families, with about 100,000 visitors a year. Shows are sung and spoken in German, mixing live music with stories from picture books, fairy tales and classics like Emil und die Detektive.
There are three stages: a 480-seat main hall, a 150-seat studio, and a 60-seat tent stage upstairs built as a first theater outing for the youngest.
Boulderklub Kreuzberg is a bouldering gym with 1,300 square meters of floor: short walls over thick mats, no ropes or harnesses.
Kids climb in their own zone around a climbing ship, marked in yellow on the mats and kept apart from the adult walls, where grown-ups jump and fall from height. A parent stays beside them the whole time, so it is not a drop-off.
Egyptian and prehistoric archaeology fill this Museum Island building. The Egyptian route leads from royal portrait heads to the bust of Nefertiti, and the lower level covers everyday life, the afterlife and the gods.
Upper floors hold Schliemann's finds from Troy, the Berlin Gold Hat and the Le Moustier Neanderthal. It suits kids who like ancient Egypt or treasure; toddlers tend to tire before the top floor.
The memorial runs 1.4 km along Bernauer Straße, where the border split the street in two. Rusty steel rods trace the line of the Wall, and markers show escape tunnels and spots where people died trying to cross.
From the viewing tower at the Documentation Center, kids look down into the last preserved stretch of the death strip, watchtower included. Best with school-age kids who know some of the history.
Science Center Spectrum is the hands-on wing of the Deutsches Technikmuseum, a building of more than 150 experiment stations that visitors are meant to touch and test. Kids light up a plasma tube, set a Newton's cradle clacking and cast colored shadows on the wall.
The stations are grouped by theme: light and vision, electricity and magnetism, heat, force and energy, mechanics and motion, and music and sound.
Kinderbauernhof Pinke-Panke is a volunteer-run children's farm and supervised adventure playground on the edge of Bürgerpark. Around 70 animals live here, including donkeys, sheep, goats, mini pigs, geese, rabbits and hens.
Staff help kids with the afternoon feeding, and there are workshops for wood, soapstone, wool and bike repairs, plus a building playground, a vegetable garden and a campfire. Expect a scrappy, hands-on farm rather than a tidy petting zoo.
Jugendfarm Moritzhof is a children's farm on the former Wall strip at the north end of Mauerpark, in Prenzlauer Berg. Kids help feed and care for goats, sheep, chickens, rabbits and guinea pigs, tend the garden beds and cook with what they harvest.
Staff also teach old crafts: felting, spinning, pottery, basket weaving and blacksmithing. The kids help decide which animals they look after and which projects come next.
The Computerspielemuseum traces video games from Pong and Computer Space to today, with more than 300 exhibits and many playable classics. Kids can try a 1980s-style arcade, game on old consoles in living rooms set up like the 1970s, 80s and 90s, work a giant controller, and browse the Wall of Hardware's 70-plus devices.
It suits kids who already play games; toddlers will find little to do.
The Rixdorfer Höhe is a hill built after World War II from about 700,000 cubic meters of rubble, rising 22 meters above the surrounding Hasenheide park. When snow falls, most families sled the short, gentle run down in the valley. Bolder kids take the winding run of about 100 meters that spirals down from the top. The park also has playgrounds, an animal enclosure and an outdoor cinema.
The Insulaner is a 78-meter hill built from World War II rubble, now wooded and crossed by footpaths. After a snowfall its west side holds one of the city's longest sledding runs, about 220 meters, with a smaller beginner slope at the bottom for younger kids.
The Wilhelm-Foerster observatory sits on the summit, the Planetarium am Insulaner at its foot, and there is a mini golf course on the hill.
EXIT runs themed escape rooms where a team has 66 minutes to find keys, crack codes and open doors while a game master sends hints.
Monster Party is the kids' room: a colorful bus ride to Monster City to find six missing monster children, with no climbing, crawling or scares. Older kids can try the fantasy room Magic Alley or Jungle Games. Games run in English and German.
The museum is built around its dinosaur hall, where kids crane up at Giraffatitan, the largest mounted dinosaur skeleton in the world. Tristan Otto, an exceptionally well-preserved T. rex, and the Berlin Archaeopteryx, an early bird fossil, are on show too.
Other galleries cover minerals, the solar system, evolution and taxidermy animals, plus the Wet Collection: about a million specimens in jars of alcohol.
A Christmas market running through Spandau's old town, with stalls selling roasted almonds, bratwurst and mulled wine. Kids can meet Santa Claus and pick up cotton candy. Families can try the two ice stock lanes on Reformationsplatz.
A Christmas market in front of Charlottenburg Palace, with craft stalls, food stands and street musicians among fir trees and lit decorations. Once it gets dark, a light-mapping show plays across the palace facade.
Kids ride the carousels and watch the palace light up, while parents browse handmade gifts and grab mulled wine or gingerbread. It suits younger kids who like lights and rides.
Berlinale Generation is the Berlin International Film Festival's section for young audiences. Kids and teens watch features, documentaries and animation from around the world, often with filmmakers and their young stars in the room for questions afterward. Children's and Youth Juries, made up of young viewers, choose the winners of the Crystal Bears.
Germany's only nationwide performing arts festival for young audiences, held every two years since 1991. Ten productions from across the country include a toddler piece about a baobab tree, a monster show, a dance work and teen dramas. Some are made for the youngest viewers, others for 12 and up.
FEZ-Berlin is a non-profit children's, youth and family center in the Wuhlheide woods. Inside are the Alice children's museum with hands-on exhibitions, the Astrid-Lindgren-Bühne children's theater, orbitall (a space center modeled on the ISS), and an indoor pool with a teaching pool and diving towers.
Outside, the park has a giant rocket playground, a dragon playground, a wooden climbing playground, an eco garden, and boats and pedal cars to rent.
The Grunewaldturm is a 55-meter red-brick tower from 1899, built on the Karlsberg hill in the Grunewald forest as a memorial to Emperor Wilhelm I. Kids climb about 200 steps to a platform 36 meters up, with views over the treetops and the Havel, as far as Potsdam on a clear day.
The emperor's marble statue stands in the hall, and a restaurant terrace sits at the foot.
The children's and teens' library inside the Amerika-Gedenkbibliothek holds about 130,000 books and other media, the largest collection of its kind in Germany.
It has three parts: a children's library and a teen library for reading for fun, plus a learning center with nonfiction and study help. The kids' wing sits in the glass-walled annex by the garden, where it has been since 1957.
Der Kegel is a climbing gym built around a former bunker, now an 18-meter cone-shaped climbing tower on the RAW grounds in Friedrichshain. Around it sit 550 square meters of indoor and outdoor bouldering up to 4 meters, across every grade, plus a small roof terrace with a snack bar.
Rope climbing on the tower is lead-only with your own rope, so most families come to boulder.
Teufelsberg is a hill built from World War II rubble in the Grunewald, and on top sit the ruins of a Cold War listening station run by US and British intelligence. Its radar domes and walls now hold one of Europe's largest street art galleries, and a 360-degree viewing platform looks over the city.
Kids can follow a spy puzzle trail across the site, with a prize at the end.
Aquarium Berlin fills three floors of the historic building at the Zoo. The ground floor holds the fish: blacktip reef sharks, a coral reef, seahorses, octopuses and drifting jellyfish.
The first floor is reptiles, with snakes, iguanas, a chameleon and the glass-walled Tropical Hall, where a wooden bridge crosses the crocodile river. The small top floor has glowing scorpions, poison frogs and leafcutter ants farming fungus gardens.
A three-deck play ship on the Spree bank, nicknamed the Black Pearl. Kids climb and balance their way between decks, ride a 5-meter spiral tube slide, cook in the galley play kitchen and play table tennis on deck.
Ramps reach part of the ship, and pieces like a marble run, speaking tubes and a memory wall are built so kids with and without disabilities can play together.
The Humboldt Forum fills the rebuilt Berlin Palace with the Ethnological Collections and Asian Art on the top two floors, the BERLIN GLOBAL exhibition on the first floor, and a changing exhibition on the ground floor.
The Palace Cellar, Sculpture Hall and a Video Panorama sit alongside, and a roof terrace about 30 meters up looks out over Museum Island, the Brandenburg Gate and Alexanderplatz.
Alte Fasanerie is a former pheasantry turned open farmyard on the rural northern edge of the city, run by the Elisabethstift youth charity. Kids can say hello to goats, alpacas, chickens, pheasants and horses, walk round the pond and the herb and flower garden, and browse the Bücherkuh, a courtyard box of kids' books to borrow. It suits a slow, quiet afternoon more than a big day out.
The DDR Museum shows daily life in East Germany through original objects visitors are allowed to handle. Kids sit behind the wheel of a Trabi driving simulator and walk through a furnished prefab apartment whose children's room is stocked with East German toys to play with.
Other rooms cover the Wall, the Stasi and a kindergarten corner. The Stasi section suits older kids more than toddlers.
A 30-meter dome built in 1987, with a 307-seat hall where fulldome projection fills the whole ceiling with stars, planets and science films. Children's shows run alongside science programs, and a separate cinema screens kids' films.
The foyer holds a free hands-on exhibition: touchscreen planets, a moon relief to run your hands over, and an immersive view from the International Space Station.
Futurium is a museum about how people might live in the future, on the Spree between the main station and the Reichstag. The exhibition is split into three thinking spaces, human, nature and technology, full of interactive stations.
In the Futurium Lab, kids can craft, solder and program at hands-on workshops, and the rooftop Skywalk opens when the weather allows.
SPRUNG.RAUM is a 2,400-square-meter trampoline hall in Marienfelde with more than 50 jump beds. Kids bounce on the free-jump field, practice flips into the foam pit, drop from a trapeze onto a giant airbag, play trampoline dodgeball and run a ninja parkour course. The Grand.Master bed sends confident jumpers up to 6 meters. Trainers with parkour and acrobatics backgrounds help with first tricks.
Teufelsberg is a hill built from World War II rubble in the Grunewald forest, topping out at 120 meters above sea level, the city's second-highest point. When snow falls, families sled and snowboard down its open slopes, which once had a ski lift and an official sled run.
The old run is now closed and partly fenced off. The abandoned US listening station sits on the summit.
A children's farm inside Görlitzer Park, run since 1981 by a neighborhood association as a supervised youth center. Kids meet goats, donkeys, ponies, rabbits, geese and chickens, roam the yard, and toddlers get their own corner with a sandpit, play equipment and a water playground in summer.
The clay-built community house hosts clubs during the week and opens to everyone on Sundays for a family café with waffles and hot chocolate.
Magic Mountain is a big climbing hall with roped walls, bouldering areas and an outdoor climbing garden. Autobelay stations let a first-timer climb without a partner after a short briefing at the desk.
Kids can start with a trainer-led taster session, climb alongside their parents in a family session, or join term-long kids training and holiday camps. It suits active kids who like heights.
A large technology museum with a locomotive shed full of historic trains, a shipping hall where kids hoist sails and steer a boat into harbor, and an aviation wing with the "Candy Bomber" plane up on the roof terrace.
The Science Center Spectrum, on the same ticket, has more than 150 hands-on experiments. Outside, the museum park has a playground and picnic areas.
Ich & Herr Meyer are two bald musicians who have spent ten years making songs for kids and their parents. They sing and rap in German about everyday family life: small injustices between siblings, the freedom of a stay with Grandma and Grandpa, AI, and a first crush.
Some songs take on climate and sustainability too. It suits kids who like pop and hip-hop more than nursery songs.
A shorter, kid-sized version of the opera house's backstage tour. Children walk past the giant stage sets waiting in storage, look down into the orchestra pit and stand on the main stage where singers perform their arias.
Along the way they see how stagehands, the props team and other departments get a show ready. It suits curious school-age kids who like to know how things work.
A new retelling of Pinocchio by playwright Philipp Löhle, staged as a musical family play. Woodcarver Geppetto wants a child, and the puppet he carves wakes up and races off to school, distracted by the fox and the cat and a toy land where anything goes. Geppetto has to set out after him. A story about parents as much as kids.
A theatrical treasure hunt where children help restore damaged books from a secret archive. Actors Yana Lova and Cem Göktas perform "Pippi Becomes a Treasure Seeker" by Astrid Lindgren, with audiences identifying missing words and phrases to rescue the story from a hungry bookworm. Each monthly installment features a different classic; this production is the second in the series.
A lively, musical and funny take on sex education, in a gently updated version of the Theater Rote Grütze classic. On stage: girls and boys, affection and desire, feeling ashamed, and how babies get into the belly and back out again.
Director Göksen Güntel's staging also shows kids they can say no when they don't like something. It suits families looking for an easy way into these conversations.
Laura is six, furious at being blamed for something she didn't do, and sets off on her bike to see the world, starting with her own Berlin apartment building. Next door she finds odd neighbors, new kinds of families and unusual life stories, while her mom searches for her. A new staging of a GRIPS favorite, with live musicians, songs and plenty of humor. Performed in German.
A Christmas funfair on Landsberger Allee with 26 rides, from a 45-meter Ferris wheel with enclosed gondolas to the 85-meter Lion Tower drop and the new Crazy Roulette. Twelve are family and kids' rides, including a mini roller coaster, carousels and a fire-fighter fun house. Younger kids will be happiest there and on the Ferris wheel; the big thrill rides suit older kids and teens.
The playground sits in Weinbergspark, a hillside park on the site of old vineyards. The toddler area has a climbing tower and slide that wheelchairs can reach, plus a nest swing, a carousel and a spinning disc on firm, step-free surfacing.
Older kids get a rubber-surfaced ball cage, ping-pong tables and a wooden deck to hang out on. The rest of the ground is sand, so a bucket and spade earn their place.
Volkspark Rehberge, in Wedding, covers 115 hectares of meadows and woodland, laid out as a landscape park in the 1920s. There are several playgrounds, a wild boar enclosure on the western side, a chain of three small ponds (no swimming), big sports grounds and kilometers of paths where kids learn to ride a bike. In winter, the long sledding hill draws families from the surrounding neighborhoods.
A large open-air flea market on the edge of Mauerpark, with roughly 400 to 450 stalls of secondhand clothes, furniture, records, lamps, jewelry, handmade goods and used toys. A food court in the middle has seating, so lunch fits between rounds of browsing.
Kids with a bit of pocket money can hunt for toys and old trinkets. It draws big crowds of locals and tourists, so keep young kids close.
A public pool complex run by Berliner Bäder. The indoor hall has a 50-meter pool with 1-meter and 3-meter diving boards and a shallow non-swimmers' pool with a kids' slide.
In summer the outdoor side opens with two 50-meter pools, a paddling pool, another slide, a big lawn and a playground. In winter an inflatable dome covers the outdoor pools for extra swimming space.
Stadtbad Neukölln is a public indoor pool more than a hundred years old, with two halls lined by 7-meter columns, arcades and mosaics. The big hall holds a 25-meter pool and the small hall a 19-meter pool, and both have a shallow non-swimmer area. Depth runs from 65cm to 2.4 meters.
It suits kids who can swim and want room, and younger ones happy in the shallow end.
Ostbloc is a bouldering hall of over 1,000 square meters by the Rummelsburger Bucht, open since 2010. Bouldering means climbing at jump-off height with no ropes or harness, over thick mats, at every difficulty level.
Kids under 8 have their own Kinderland area. Under-12s who want the main mats first take the Boulderführerschein, a course done with a parent that covers the hall rules.
The Müggelturm is a 30-meter observation tower on the Kleiner Müggelberg, in the forested Müggelberge hills. Kids climb 126 steps to a viewing platform where, on a clear day, the view runs about 60 kilometers, from the Müggelsee to Alexanderplatz and BER Airport.
A restaurant with a sun terrace sits at the base, and hiking trails, cycle routes, a downhill trail and a nature trail loop through the forest.
The glass dome on the roof of the Reichstag Building, home of the German parliament, has a spiral ramp that winds up around a mirrored cone to an open top. Kids can look down through the glass into the plenary chamber, then walk the roof terrace for views over the government district and city landmarks.
Audioguides on the terrace come in twelve languages, with a children's version in German.
A large park of themed gardens from around the world: Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Balinese, Oriental, Italian Renaissance, English and Jewish gardens, plus a hedge maze and a labyrinth to run through.
A cable car glides up to 35 meters above the Wuhletal valley to the Kienberg hill. The playgrounds follow Erich Kästner's book "The 35th of May", with a climbing whale, a water forest and giant wooden ants.
Eisstadion Neukölln is the district's open-air artificial ice rink, at the edge of the Werner-Seelenbinder-Sportpark by Tempelhofer Feld. The public rink is about 65 by 39 meters, next to a separate competition rink used by hockey and figure skating clubs.
A rental shop on site rents skates in all sizes, plus double-blade gliders for kids up to 1 meter tall. Beginners can join the local skating schools that teach here.
Tierpark Berlin spreads across 160 hectares of parkland around the 18th-century Friedrichsfelde manor house, making it Europe's largest animal park. Kids can watch tigers in the renovated Alfred Brehm House, spot red pandas and snow leopards on a cloud-forest trail, and see giraffes and zebras on an African savanna.
Between animals there's a petting zoo with goats and ponies, a seaside-themed water play area, and the Fabelwald woodland playground.
Germany's oldest zoo, opened in 1844, keeps around 20,000 animals and more species than any other zoo in the world. Kids can watch Germany's only giant pandas, plus elephants and pygmy hippos, and pet goats at the petting zoo.
Many animals live in indoor houses, so it works on a cold day too. The aquarium by the Elefantentor gate needs a combined ticket.
A private museum about the Berlin Wall, open since 1963 beside the old border crossing. Its rooms hold the real things people used to get out of East Berlin: repurposed cars including an Isetta, a homemade hot-air balloon, a mini submarine and motorized hang-gliders.
The displays are mostly photos and text, so it suits school-age kids who already know some of the story.
A hands-on children's museum in a former factory on Osloer Strasse in Wedding. The current exhibition, TALENTOPIA, is about finding what each kid is good at: building cardboard-tube cities with a construction crane, solving analog programming puzzles in a control center, painting at an art materials bar, playing word games, and making music from bottles and dishwasher parts.
There is no maze, despite the name.
Mauerpark sits on the former Berlin Wall death strip, and 300 meters of the Wall still stand along its east side, covered in street art. An amphitheater set into the slope hosts open-air karaoke on summer Sundays.
Up north are the Moritzhof children's farm and a 15-meter climbing wall, and kids have several playgrounds to choose from, the biggest built in 2020.
A nearly 100-year-old public pool, reopened after a partial renovation. The ground floor has a 53-meter slide and a toddler area with its own small slide, massage jets, bubblers and a paddling pool. An outdoor pool has a current channel.
Upstairs is a 25-meter lane pool with 1-meter and 3-meter diving boards, a learner pool and a saltwater pool.
Botanic Garden Berlin covers 43 hectares in Dahlem and grows around 20,000 plant species. The Great Tropical Greenhouse, an Art Nouveau glasshouse, stays warm all year and holds giant bamboo, and the cactus house has columns taller than an adult. Outside, long paths loop past ponds, an arboretum and beds that group plants by where in the world they grow.
STERN+KREIS runs Berlin's passenger boats from piers across the city. From Treptow harbor by Treptower Park, the bridge trip loops the Landwehrkanal and the Spree through river locks, past the Technikmuseum, the Reichstag, Museum Island and the East Side Gallery.
Other boats head southeast past Köpenick's old town to the open water of the Müggelsee. Snacks and drinks are sold on board; outside food is not allowed.
The Fernsehturm is the 368-meter TV tower opposite Alexanderplatz station, and its observation deck at 203 meters is the highest viewpoint in the city. Kids can pick out the Brandenburg Gate, the Reichstag and the Spree from the 360-degree windows, then try Berlin's Odyssee, a virtual reality trip through nine centuries of city history. The Sphere restaurant up top revolves while you eat.
Sommerbad Pankow is a public summer pool with a 50m lane pool and a diving pool with 3m, 5m and 7.5m towers. Kids head for the two slides, a high-speed slide, and a leisure pool with a current channel and water cannons, while toddlers have their own paddling pool.
Sunbathing terraces on six levels sit under three shade sails, and there are ping-pong tables and a snack bar.
Strandbad Plötzensee is a privately run lake beach on the Plötzensee in Wedding. Sand slopes into the water, a long wooden jetty is the spot for jumping in, and there's a water slide. On land, kids get a playground with a big rope climbing frame, a bouncy castle, volleyball courts and table tennis. A lake café, beach restaurant and pizzeria cover lunch, and lifeguards watch the water.
Erika-Heß-Eisstadion is Berlin's third-largest ice rink, with a covered rink and an open-air rink side by side on Müllerstraße in Wedding. The open-air ice reopened for public skating in 2026 after years closed.
In winter it draws neighborhood families and skaters from across the city. The covered rink keeps sessions going when it rains, and the open-air rink is the one to pick on a crisp, dry day.
Horst-Dohm-Eisstadion is a large public ice rink run by the Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf district, with room for first-timers and confident skaters on the same ice. A rental shop on site lends skates and sharpens blades, so kids without their own pair can still go.
The restaurant inside the stadium is the place to warm up between laps.
Prokofiev's musical fairy tale about Peter, an orphan boy who leaves the garden gate open, and the adventure that follows with his grandfather, a hunter, a cat, a duck, a bird and a wolf. Six musicians play it live while a narrator tells the story in German.
It is the flagship family concert of the Kammerorchester Unter den Linden, and suits kids who can follow spoken German.
A guided walk through the museum's DINOSAURS! special exhibition, made for families. Kids meet dinosaurs from three geological eras: Tristan Otto, one of the best-preserved T. rex skeletons in the world, the 13-meter Giraffatitan and the Archaeopteryx, the world's most famous fossil.
The guide speaks German, so it suits kids who can follow along in German best.
A group of fans is on a backstage tour before a big concert when the band gets locked in its dressing room. The fans know the songs, and some can play, but nobody wants to stand in the spotlight.
The collective hannsjana uses humor and plenty of live music to look at shyness, stage fright and self-confidence. It suits quiet kids, and the loud ones around them.
A musical fairy tale by Thomas Sutter. The little harmonica feels too small and too plain for the big concert hall, until it meets its relatives the accordion, the jaw harp and the Chinese sheng, and finds its own sound.
Soloists Wu Wei, Sören Birke and Mikael Yakut play all four instruments and show how they differ, and why they are one family: each sounds through a free reed.
A new musical play from Theater an der Parkaue (Chaos der Gefühle) about what love feels like. A question mark goes looking for answers and meets a cloud floating around in love, a hyper hormone, a candy-loving strawberry and Frustration.
It is funny, full of songs written for the show, and lands on self-love and the courage to ask questions. Suits kids starting to notice crushes.
Storytellers Nicola Knappe and Maria Carmela Marinelli follow a block of stone, cut from a mountain near Berlin, that became the figures in and around the Humboldt Forum, like Hercules and Jupiter. They weave its adventures together with myths from antiquity, told with humor in German and Italian side by side.
It suits kids who can follow a spoken story in at least one of the two languages.
Bubales is a Jewish puppet theater, and this is its show for Hanukkah, the Jewish festival of lights. Shlomo is given a mysterious wonder lamp from Istanbul, and three funny spirits jump out to tell of a miracle of light in the Temple in Jerusalem.
With Jewish humor, a candle band and a hyperactive dreidel, it tells the holiday's customs and its old story.
A lively, funny children's version of Mozart's Magic Flute. Andreas Peer Kähler wrote the script, plays the piano and steps in as Mozart himself, guiding kids through the story. Ensemble Papamino, with singers from the Deutsche Oper Berlin chorus, sings and acts it.
It suits kids who follow German and are curious about opera.
A lantern evening at the neighborhood library in Prenzlauer Berg. Kids start by making their own colorful paper lantern with Nadine, who brings all the materials.
Then Rumpelmärchen, a Berlin fairy-tale theater ensemble, tell the story of a phoenix reborn from its ashes and turn it into a real fire show out in the courtyard. A good pick for kids who like crafts and a bit of drama.
A colored shadow-puppet version of Andersen's Thumbelina, performed by puppeteer Thomas Mierau. Thumbelina is born in a flower and travels past a toad, cheerful fish, a dancing butterfly and a rich mole who wants her in his palace, until a swallow carries her to a land of flowers. Gentle and poetic, with songs. Performed in German.
Kids and grown-ups build a pop-up box together, filled with pictures of the people, pets, toys or places they love most. Everything is made at the table from craft materials, and the finished treasure box goes home with you. It is open drop-in making, so families work at their own pace.
Christmas is coming, but nothing goes to plan for Pettersson and Findus: no tree, no festive meal, no firewood, and then Pettersson sprains his foot. A Christmas elf called Kirsi has an idea that could change everything.
Theater des Lachens plays it as a warm, funny story about friendship and helping each other out. It is performed in German, so it suits kids who follow spoken German.
Staatsballett Berlin opens its rehearsal studios at the Deutsche Oper to families for a hands-on morning. Dance teachers explain how ballet works, then kids and their grown-ups try some steps themselves.
At the end, everyone watches the company's professional dancers up close during their daily morning class. A good fit for kids who like to move or are curious about what happens behind the stage.
