Things to Do with Kids in Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg

BAUBAU is a play space inside the Gropius Bau, designed by the artist Kerstin Brätsch, where more is allowed than forbidden. Painted walls, abstract structures and heaps of loose parts (cardboard, fabric, rope, kitchenware) become whatever kids decide.

Trained playworkers keep it safe while children build, take things apart, run around or rest. There are no workshops or set tasks, so it suits kids who like open-ended play more than a guided program.

A puppet version of the Grimm tale: a donkey, a dog, a cat and a rooster, chased off by their owners, team up and set out to become town musicians in Bremen. Played by Sebastian Günther, it is staged as a musical road movie full of blues.

It suits kids who follow spoken German or already know the story, since the words and songs carry it.

Every winter the children's library at the Amerika-Gedenkbibliothek puts a real Mongolian yurt in its atrium garden, and professional storytellers sit inside it to tell fairy tales and stories from around the world.

Kids sit close and listen to stories told live, not read from a book. It suits preschoolers who can sit still for a story; toddlers under 3 are not admitted.

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.

The great magician Ala Labama turns walking sticks into flowers and bananas into carrots, and makes things float. Then his assistant Fridolin misses his cue, the big rabbit transformation goes wrong, and the show tips into chaos. Coq au Vin mixes magic, acrobatics and slapstick, and the actors play off the kids in the audience.

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.

Two angels crash-land on Earth and try to win back favor from up above by wowing the audience with acrobatics, clowning and clever ideas. Jealousy gets in the way, and the comedy ends on a simple point: help each other.

Coq Au Vin mixes circus and theater, and kids get pulled into the action rather than left sitting still. No religious content, despite the angels. Parents get their share of jokes too.

Ranik and Raja are two young wolves and best friends, but Ranik knows little about how to be a good friend. When a forest fairy spirits Raja away, Ranik has to learn what true friendship means to break the spell, facing adventures and tests along the way, with a quick-witted raccoon who might help.

Actors in full costume play it out. It's the Silflay troupe's own production, performed in German.

Milchsalon puts on a run of family concerts through autumn and the run-up to Christmas. Corinna Bilke and her Skeleton Band open with Grusical, spooky songs and funny interludes for Halloween, and she returns with jazzy winter songs from her album Wunschuniversum.

Unter meinem Bett brings singer-songwriters from the compilation series to one stage, and Pauken & Planeten meet Nevio Passaro for a German-Italian Christmas show.

A fairy-tale puppet play loosely based on Janosch. A poor man owns an apple tree that never blooms and never bears fruit. He wishes, honestly and over and over, for one single apple, and then something happens.

Susi Claus adapted the story and plays it herself, directed by Daniel Wagner. It is told in German, so it suits young kids who can follow a spoken story in German.

Berlin's oldest public park was laid out in the 1840s on the edge of Friedrichshain and Prenzlauer Berg. At the west entrance, the 1913 Märchenbrunnen fountain has over 100 stone figures from German fairy tales. Two hills built from wartime bunkers and rubble, Mont Klamott and Kleiner Bunkerberg, look out over the city center. There are playgrounds, sports grounds, a swan pond with a beer garden, and a barbecue area.

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.

Park am Gleisdreieck opened in 2013 on former railway land, and U-Bahn trains still cross it on raised viaducts. Its 30 hectares hold several playgrounds, including a water playground with climbing frames and a 5,000 m² nature play area with a clay landscape and water pump. Older kids head for the 1,300 m² skate park, table tennis and beach volleyball courts.

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.

Markthalle Neun is an 1891 market hall in Kreuzberg, one of 14 the city once ran. Inside are farmers' market stalls, a fish counter, bakeries, a butcher, cafés, open kitchens and a brewery in the cellar.

Kids can wander between the stalls, try snacks and watch food being made. Street Food Thursday, running since 2013, fills the hall with chefs who have no restaurant of their own.

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.

This beer garden has stood inside Viktoriapark since 1977, with tables shaded by trees and parasols, a big sun terrace, and a charcoal grill turning out sausages, skewers, fish and homemade salads.

Parents get coffee or a cold drink while kids roam the park paths, with a playground a short walk away. Evenings bring a bar crowd and indoor dancing, so it suits families best by day.

The East Side Gallery is the longest surviving stretch of the Berlin Wall, running 1.3 km along Mühlenstraße between Ostbahnhof and the Oberbaumbrücke. After the Wall fell, 118 artists from 21 countries painted it with murals.

Kids can hunt for famous ones, like the Brezhnev and Honecker kiss and a Trabant car bursting through the Wall, then cut across to the green strip along the Spree.

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.

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.

Berlin's first children's farm, started in 1981 by neighbors who cleared a rubble lot beside the Wall. Kids can meet sheep, goats, ponies, donkeys, rabbits, ducks, geese and chickens, and see how animal feed, herbs and vegetables are grown in the gardens.

There is also a nature trail, a community house built from clay, and open pasture for running around.

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 Prinzenbad is a big public pool between the Landwehrkanal and Prinzenstraße station, with two 50-meter pools for lap swimmers. Kids head for the large non-swimmer pool with its slide and water mushroom, the shallow paddling pool, and a playground with a splash area.

Wide lawns leave room for a picnic, and the snack bar is a local institution.

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.

Viktoriapark climbs the Kreuzberg, the highest hill in the inner city, with Schinkel's cast-iron National Monument at the top. After a snowfall, families sled down its several slopes. The gradient is moderate enough for small kids, and the main run is wide.

Between runs, there's a wooden climbing playground and an enclosure with goats, rabbits and guinea pigs.

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 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.

A 1,500-square-meter indoor play hall. Kids ride a children's train and a chain carousel, climb a soft mountain and a giant inflatable crocodile, and race down double-wave and tube slides in the adventure play structure.

There's also a ball pit, a climbing wall, bouncy castles, face painting and a separate toddler area, plus a cafeteria.

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.