Eight to twelve is the age when kids want the real version: a proper workshop, a race with a number on their shirt, a festival they can stay up for. This list gathers the plans whose age rule includes this band, from museum workshops to runs, concerts and shows. It updates as new dates come in, so check back before each weekend.
A hands-on workshop at EXPERIMINTA, Frankfurt's science center, built around air and air pressure. Kids measure how fast things fall, build rockets that fly on the recoil principle, and make chocolate marshmallow treats (Schaumküsse) burst.
It starts from questions kids ask, like why nobody falls off a round Earth and how a metal plane can fly. Good for curious kids who like to build and test things.
A drop-off workshop at the Senckenberg built around one question: did dinosaurs have scales or feathers? Kids start with a guided look at the skeletons and what they reveal about color and body shape, then make their own dino models together.
It is part of the museum's monthly Expedition Museum series. Kids take part without a parent, so it suits curious kids who are happy in a group.
EXPERIMINTA, Frankfurt's hands-on science center in Bockenheim, runs an evening show series called Nacht im Museum, and the December edition has a Christmas theme.
The Scientastic team puts on big, showy experiments, and some kids get called up on stage to help. It suits school-age kids who like their science loud and bright, and who can stay sharp past their usual bedtime.
Waiting for the Christkind can feel endless, so Zoo Frankfurt gives kids something to do with their hands. Together with the animal keepers, they craft tasty presents for some of the zoo animals.
Then they stay to watch the animals enjoy their special meal. It suits kids who like animals and making things.
A girl arrives in a new city and wonders if she belongs. Somewhere, a zebra has been spotted. As the two wander through the crowds, the city builds itself around them like a life-size pop-up picture book, with music and surprising transformations.
A Scottish-German premiere by TheaterGrueneSosse and Tortoise in a Nutshell, played with very little spoken German, so kids still learning the language can follow along.
In the Grand Hotel, the instruments of four visiting musicians vanish without a trace, and soon nobody can keep track of anything. Who is behind the thefts?
The Federspiel ensemble tells the whole story without words, through humor, misunderstandings and plenty of live music. Kids follow it by watching and listening, so it suits families who speak no German and children who like a bit of chaos on stage.
A poetry slam where the kids are the jury. Well-known adult slammers from across Germany take the stage with texts they wrote themselves, and the children in the audience score each one and decide who gets the crown.
It suits kids who enjoy rhymes, raps and stories, and who follow spoken German easily, since the words are the whole show.
A staffed adventure playground on 5,000 square meters inside the Riederwald forest, open since 1973. Instead of ready-made equipment, kids get boards, beams, ropes, hammers, nails and saws from the tool hut and build their own towers and dens.
There is mud, sand and water to dig in, a fire pit, and a play house with a kitchen and toilet. Staff hand out tools and lend a hand when asked.
The city's children's museum sits inside the Historisches Museum by the river. Its current exhibition, Damals 1410, is a walk-through game: kids time-travel to a medieval town, help a builder raise a castle with AI, work as influencers at the smithy and put out a fire, earning badges for skills like spotting fake news.
Orange family-trail stations in the main museum let kids mint a coin or make a cartoon.
A big special exhibition on dragons, told through art and science together. European dragon-slayer paintings sit beside East Asian sky dragons, along with fossils and animal specimens that may have fed the old stories.
Kids follow their own trail with Naseheiß, the museum dragon, using an activity booklet to hunt down six dragons. A reading corner and a drawing wall give younger visitors a break between rooms.
Hanau is the birthplace of the Brothers Grimm, and since 1985 the city has staged their fairy tales outdoors in the park of Schloss Philippsruhe. Each season brings three new fairy-tale productions, a musical, a play with music and a family play, plus plays for older teens and adults. Shows are in German, so this suits kids who follow a story by watching.
The Bundesbank's museum about money and how it works. The exhibition sits on one level with a lift, and a coffee shop is on the same floor. It suits kids who like coins, cash and how banks work, and fits a short visit better than a full day.
Humperdinck's fairy-tale opera, staged by Keith Warner. Two siblings get lost in the woods and meet a gingerbread-house witch, and the Frankfurt Opera Children's Choir joins in. It is sung in German with German and English surtitles, so kids who know the Grimm story can follow along. Best for kids who can sit through a full opera.
A hands-on printing workshop where kids and parents make Hanukkah greeting cards together. Using a few different printing techniques, families print menorahs, candles and other symbols of the Jewish festival of lights, and pick up the story and customs of Hanukkah along the way.
No printing experience needed. Everyone takes their cards home, ready to give to grandparents, teachers or friends.
A classic circus in a big-top tent that sets up in Frankfurt every Christmas, now in its 13th edition. The 2026 show is headlined by Nomuna, a 14-person teeterboard troupe from Mongolia that won a Silver Clown at this year's Monte-Carlo circus festival.
Around them: the Bello Sisters' hand-balancing act, an aerial ring duo, a fast juggler and a knife-and-crossbow pair. Best for kids who can sit through a long show.
Wonderworld is the brand-new touring show from Andreas and Chris Ehrlich, the star magicians known as the Ehrlich Brothers. It is a big stage show of illusions and effects in the Festhalle, pitched at parents and kids alike.
The brothers present it in German, so it suits kids who are happy watching the tricks unfold even if they miss some of the talk.
Frankfurt's Fastnacht clubs bring their youngest dance troupes to one stage for a day of Gardetanz (guard dance) and show dance. Kids in matching uniforms march, kick and do splits in tight formation while judges score each routine.
It suits children who like costumes and music, and anyone curious to see the local carnival from the inside. Toddlers may tire of a long run of similar routines.
Frankfurt's city museum of archaeology fills the medieval church of a former Carmelite monastery and traces the region from its first farmers, about 7,500 years ago, to the 20th century.
Standouts include a Celtic prince's grave from the city forest, Roman finds from the town of Nida with reliefs from four Mithras temples, a Roman painter's grave, and objects from ancient Egypt, Greece and Cyprus.
The Jewish Museum tells the story of Frankfurt's Jews from around 1800 to today, across three floors of the Rothschild Palais, the former home of the banking family. Every floor has hands-on stations and labels written for kids, alongside films, media stations and art.
The last room holds everyday objects, letters and photos from Anne Frank's Frankfurt family. It suits school-age kids with some patience for history more than toddlers.
The DAM fills an old villa on the Museumsufer with a white "house within a house" that architect Oswald Mathias Ungers built in 1984, climbing from the basement to a gabled top floor under a glass roof.
The permanent exhibition, "From Primitive Hut to Skyscraper", tells the story of building through 25 model dioramas. Temporary shows on cities and design change through the year.
LaserZone Frankfurt is a 1,140 m² laser tag arena on several levels, with towers, platforms and glowing corridors. Players wear vests and infrared phasers and pick from more than 40 missions, solo or in teams, after a short briefing from staff.
Games are sold as timed flat-rate blocks, and a lounge sells drinks, pizza and snacks between rounds.
An indoor mini golf course where 18 holes run through rooms of graffiti painted in UV neon paint and lit by blacklight. Special 3D glasses make the walls pop and the ball seem to float over obstacles. Holes include an XXL loop, pinball-style lanes and play across two floors. It suits school-age kids; the holes get tricky for younger ones.
Fraport's Visitors' Center is built around hands-on stations: kids can guide an Airbus A320neo into its parking spot with real marshalling sticks, fight a simulated fire, play apron controller, and explore a 55 m² model of the airport on tablets. A panoramic window looks onto the apron.
Guided bus tours also drive out past refueling planes, takeoffs and landings, with a live guide taking questions.
Römerberg is Frankfurt's historic main square. On one side stands the Römer, city hall since the 15th century, with stepped Gothic gables; facing it is the Ostzeile, a row of half-timbered houses, each with its own name.
Kids can spot Justitia on the Justice Fountain, holding scales and a sword without a blindfold. Most buildings are reconstructions: the old town was largely destroyed in 1944.
A staffed adventure playground on the northwest edge of Günthersburgpark, where kids borrow hammers, saws and paint from the tool hut and build their own wooden huts. There is also a wooden climbing castle with a bouldering wall, a hillside slide, a campfire pit, a soccer field and a sand area.
The building zone keeps loose boards and nails on purpose, and staff teach kids to handle the risk.
A supervised adventure playground built as a Wild West town, a nod to the American families who once lived in the nearby housing areas. Kids find a stagecoach, wooden horses, a rocket with a roller slide, a mini Grand Canyon, and a water play area with streams for damming and mini canoes. Staff build huts with kids and fire up a bake house for flatbread and bread.
The Museum für Kommunikation traces how people send messages, from cuneiform tablets to glasses with built-in AI, across 2,500 square meters and 46 themed islands with no set route. Kids can try dozens of interactive stations and put questions to a talking painting of the computer scientist Alan Turing, which answers visitors. It suits curious school-age kids more than toddlers.
A whole medieval castle turns into a Christmas market. Small stalls fill the rooms of Burg Ronneburg with crafts, gift ideas, waffles and mulled wine, and outside the walls a medieval market adds traders and craftspeople. A living nativity play tells the Christmas story.
It suits kids who like castles and costumes, and families happy to wander, browse and snack.
An evening walk through Frankfurt's botanical garden, lit by about 30 light installations. Giant glowing moons, snowdrops and floating hearts hang over the paths and trees, with music, video projections and a few interactive light pieces along the way.
The route is outdoors and on foot, so it suits kids who can walk a while in the cold. Younger ones tend to like the big, bright shapes most.
The Grosser Rat, the umbrella group of Frankfurt's carnival clubs, puts on a Fastnacht afternoon made for kids. On stage, children host and dance in costume, and the city's Kinderprinzenpaar and Prinzenpaar make an appearance.
Around the hall there's face painting, a balloon artist, game stations and a Bobby Car race. It suits kids who like dressing up and noise. Costumes for kids and adults are welcome.
Mainz's Rosenmontagszug is the biggest day of the city's Fastnacht: a long parade of decorated floats, marching carnival guards in uniform, brass bands and the Schwellköpp, the oversized papier-mâché heads that star in the 2027 motto.
Kids line the curb in costume, shout "Helau" and catch sweets thrown from the wagons. It suits families happy in big crowds; with a stroller, pick a spot early or see little.
Dippemess is Frankfurt's big traditional funfair, held twice a year on the fairground next to the Eissporthalle. Kids ride classic carousels, spinning rides, a roller coaster and the Ferris wheel, which looks out over the city at dusk.
Between rides there's cotton candy, crêpes and candied almonds. It suits kids who love rides and can handle noise, bright lights and evening crowds.
Schwanheimer Düne is a 58-hectare nature reserve on an inland sand dune, formed from Main riverbed sand after the last Ice Age. A wooden boardwalk loops through pine trees, silver grass and open sand, with information boards. Kids have to stay on the boards to protect the lichens, which makes it a car-free stretch for running. Look for herons fishing in the Schmitt'sche Grube, a former sand pit.
The Ebbelwei-Express is a 1950s tram painted inside and out as a traveling cider pub, with cartoon artwork and seats for 22. It runs a one-hour loop from the Zoo past the Römer, the main station, the trade fair and Sachsenhausen. Every rider gets a bottle of apple juice, water or cider and a bag of pretzels. No guide rides along, but the website has an audio tour.
Friday's Bowling is a large bowling hall with more than 25 lanes, interactive scoring screens and bumpers that keep a beginner's ball out of the gutter. Light balls start at 2.5 kg and rental shoes at size 24, so small kids can bowl properly.
Between games there are billiard tables, darts, shuffleboard and arcade machines, and the Eco Kart electric go-kart track sits 50 meters away.
A film museum on the Museumsufer in Sachsenhausen, with a permanent exhibition over two floors. Kids spin zoetropes, peer into peep-boxes, work a magic lantern and watch the Main and the skyline appear in a camera obscura.
The second part centers on the Film Room, with clips playing across four big screens, plus stations on how camera angles, sound and editing change a scene. The basement cinema runs regular family screenings.
Dialogmuseum runs Dialog im Dunkeln, a tour through four rooms with no light. Groups of up to eight follow a blind or visually impaired guide, finding their way with a white cane, their hands and their ears. The last room is the DunkelBar, where the group orders a drink in the dark and talks with the guide. Anyone can leave at any point, though there is no way back in.
A hands-on science center with around 200 experiment stations over four floors, covering math, computer science, natural science and technology. Kids stand inside a giant eye, lie on a bed of nails, watch sand jump to sound on Chladni plates and power a light bulb themselves.
A puzzle room tests patience, and one exhibit looks into the black hole at the heart of the Milky Way. Suits curious school-age kids.
An outdoor ice rink in the Kurpark, set in front of the historic Kaiser-Wilhelms-Bad, with the decorated Brunnenallee and a huge Christmas tree beside it. Kids can take their first wobbly laps or practice spins.
Families can also book a lane for Eisstockschießen, a German curling game played in teams of four or five. A chalet next to the rink sells hot drinks and warm snacks.
The Kinderweihnachtsmarkt is the kids' corner of the Frankfurt Christmas market, set on the Mainkai just east of the Eiserner Steg.
Kids get a mix of hands-on activities and festive attractions, so it suits families who want a market stop built around the children. Parents can carry on to the rest of the Christmas market afterward.
One of Germany's largest mobile ice rinks fills the Bowling Green lawn in front of Wiesbaden's Kurhaus each winter, with skaters looping around the two historic fountains on 100-meter laps.
Rental skates, skating aids for wobbly beginners and lockers are on site, and ice-stock lanes (Bavarian-style curling) sit right in front of the Kurhaus. It suits first-timers and confident skaters alike.
Fastnacht weekend brings two parades into Frankfurt's old town. Saturday's children's parade is short and made for kids, followed by the carnival prince and princess storming the Römer, the city hall, for its keys.
Sunday's big parade is the main event: floats, carnival guards in uniform, marching bands and dance troupes, with sweets thrown into the crowd. It suits families who can handle crowds and noise.
Klaa Paris, the local nickname for Heddernheim, has held a carnival parade through its narrow village lanes since 1839, making it the oldest in Frankfurt. Around 1,500 carnival club members, marching bands and floats wind through the old center, throwing sweets (Kamelle) into the crowd.
Expect big crowds, with around 100,000 people along the route, so it suits kids who don't mind noise and being packed in.
Wäldchestag is Frankfurt's own folk festival, a fair that sets up among the trees of the Stadtwald around Oberforsthaus. Kids get a Ferris wheel, chair swings, carousels and prize stalls, while parents sit in beer gardens with apple wine and sausages in the shade.
Afternoons suit families best. Evenings lean toward adults, with stage music and drinks until late.
A paint-your-own-pottery studio with more than 300 blank ceramic pieces to choose from, from mugs and plates to animal figures. Staff show the basic glazing techniques, kids help themselves to paints and brushes, and the studio fires the finished piece for pickup on a set date.
There are also clay classes, including a family session where kids of any age build small projects by hand.
KeramikZauber is a paint-your-own-pottery studio on Schweizer Straße in Sachsenhausen. Kids pick a blank piece from the shelves (mugs, plates, bowls, vases or figures) and decorate it with brushes, stamps, sponges and stencils. No experience needed.
The studio glazes and fires every piece afterward, and the finished work is collected later. It suits kids happy to focus on one project; younger ones need a parent painting alongside.
The west tower of the Kaiserdom, the church where Holy Roman emperors were crowned, rises 95 meters over the Altstadt. A narrow spiral staircase of 328 steps climbs to a viewing platform 66 meters up, with views over the Römerberg, the Main and the skyscrapers, and on clear days the Taunus hills. There is no elevator, so it suits kids who can manage a steep, steady climb.
Kleinmarkthalle is the city's covered food market, open since 1954, with more than 60 stalls across over 1,500 square meters. Traders sell fruit, vegetables, meat, fish, cheese, bread and international deli food, and small food stands serve meals to eat on the spot.
Kids can try the local specialties at the stalls, like Frankfurter sausages and Grüne Soße, the city's green herb sauce.
KiBi is the city library's central branch for children and teens, on the ground floor of the Saalbau Bornheim. Shelves run from picture books and non-fiction to magazines and children's books in other languages.
Teens get their own TeenLounge with console games, DVDs and manga, and the weekly TechnoTHEK lets kids try hands-on tech kits alongside a parent.
Theaterhaus Frankfurt is an independent theater for children and teenagers, with two small stages seating 80 to 120. Frankfurt's independent ensembles premiere their own plays here, from puppet and clown shows for toddlers to drama for teens, and international guest companies visit for the Starke Stücke festival. Plays are performed in German.
Storytellers also run fairy-tale Sundays for families on the little stage in the theater café.
The Städel holds 700 years of European art, from Dürer and Botticelli to Rembrandt, Monet, Picasso and Gerhard Richter, in a building on the Museumsufer riverbank.
Kids get their own program: family tours that turn paintings into stories, studio workshops where they paint or draw and take their work home, and Imagoras, a tablet game for children. It suits kids who like to draw and look closely.
Lohrberg is a 185-meter hill on the northeast edge of town, and the city's only vineyard grows on its south slope. Apple orchard meadows cover much of the hill, and the MainÄppelHaus orchard center explains the trees and Frankfurt's apple wine.
At the top, the Lohrpark has a big flat lawn for ball games, a playground, and wide views of the skyline. Walking and cycling paths wind through the orchards.
Hafenpark is a 40,000-square-meter park on the Main riverbank, right below the European Central Bank tower. Its Concrete Jungle skate park draws amateur and pro skaters, and a second, smaller skate area is set aside for kids.
Around it sit basketball, volleyball, badminton and soccer courts, a climbing course, playgrounds, outdoor fitness equipment, and open lawns with wide wooden loungers for picnics.
Alter Flugplatz Bonames was Maurice Rose Airfield, a US military airfield until 1992. Since the early 2000s it has been part of the GrünGürtel, the city's green belt: the fences came down, the asphalt was broken up, and ponds and wild meadows grew in.
Kids run, bike and scoot along the old runway, now narrowed and left to nature. A picnic meadow sits beside a snack kiosk with long tables.
Heinrich-Kraft-Park is a forest play park in the Fechenheim woods. Its centerpiece is a wooden climbing frame of tree towers joined by walkways, with two long steel tube slides.
The Tabaluga Village is an inclusive play area built so kids with and without disabilities can play side by side. Older kids head for the roller skating rink, the basketball court and the football pitches.
The Stadtwald covers about 5,000 hectares on the city's south side, with some 450 km of paths for walking, biking and running. For kids, the main draws are the forest playgrounds (Waldspielparks).
The one at the Goetheturm sits under tall trees, with slides, swings, climbing towers, a wooden maze and a mud play area. Next door, 196 steps climb the 43-meter wooden tower to a skyline view.
A forest play park in the Stadtwald, built around a water spray field where kids run through the jets on hot days. There is a separate children's play area and an 18-hole mini golf course with large wooden figures.
The sports side has a roller skating rink, table tennis, a basketball court and a soccer field. A kiosk and toilets are on site.
The city-run ice rink joins a large indoor rink, a smaller beginner rink and a 400-meter outdoor ring around the stadium into one connected sheet of ice, the largest in Germany. Boards line the indoor rinks, so first-timers have something to hold. Skates rent on site in sizes 23 to 50, the shop sells gliders for very young skaters, and the Cool Running bar has snacks.
Main Bad Bornheim is the Frankfurter Bäder leisure pool next to the Ostpark. Kids head for the 74-meter tube slide and the wide slide, then the spray park with jets, a water tree, a cascade and a tipping bucket. Toddlers get their own splash pool.
There is also a warm bubble pool, plus a 25-meter pool with a movable floor, a 1-meter board and a 3-meter platform for confident swimmers.
Superfly Frankfurt is a trampoline park of nearly 4,000 m². Its standout is the Zip Out, a zip line that carries jumpers over the hall.
Around it are open trampoline courts, a ninja obstacle run, a 15-meter tumbling lane, basketball dunk lanes, a trapeze swing, and a foam pit and giant airbag for big drops. It suits kids who want to burn energy; nervous jumpers can stay on the courts.
The Frankfurt section of the German Alpine Club (DAV) runs this climbing center, with over 1,700 square meters of walls spread across an indoor hall and an outdoor area. There are top-rope and lead routes, autobelay lines, and a small bouldering room upstairs with a big panorama window.
It suits families with some belaying experience. Complete beginners can start with a coached taster session.
A high-ropes climbing forest beside the Waldstadion, the Eintracht Frankfurt stadium, with 13 courses and about 150 climbing elements. Younger kids start on the Bambini courses, older ones move up through intermediate and expert routes to the Skyline course 30 meters up. Five tall towers look out over the stadium and the skyline. Everyone climbs on a continuous safety system after a briefing from staff.
A 20-hectare botanical garden in the Westend with around 13,000 plant species. Indoors, kids walk through the 1869 Palm House, the Tropicarium's rainforest and desert glasshouses, a carnivorous plant collection with Venus flytraps, and a butterfly house where pupae hatch in view.
Outside are a large playground with a water play area, a shaded playground above the pond, rental boats in summer and a mini golf course.
A natural history museum built around a dinosaur hall, where a Tyrannosaurus, a Triceratops and a long-necked Diplodocus stand over the floor. Other galleries cover whales and elephants, the deep sea, coral reefs, insects, and 47-million-year-old fossils from the nearby Messel Pit.
In the Aha?! Science Lab, kids handle more than 100 natural objects, look at them under microscopes and help sort samples for real research projects.
Hessentag is Hesse's state festival, hosted by a different town each year. In 2027 it comes to Idstein, a half-timbered old town in the Taunus hills that last hosted it in 2002. Expect live music, food stalls, local clubs and, by tradition, a big costume parade.
For kids, the draw is "Der Natur auf der Spur", a family nature area in the Wörsbachaue meadows, run by the state environment ministry with HessenForst.
Boulderwelt Frankfurt is a large bouldering gym: rope-free climbing on short walls over padded floors. Kids get their own area with child-sized holds, split into a course section modeled on the adult walls and a jungle-themed zone for the youngest climbers.
Older kids can also climb with an adult in a mixed section of the main hall, and parents get a lounge with coffee.
A sightseeing boat on the Main that leaves from the Eiserner Steg footbridge, a short walk from the Römer. One loop heads upriver toward Gerbermühle, the other downriver toward the Griesheim lock, and the long trip does both. Kids can sit on the open top deck and watch the bank towers and bridges slide past. Commentary is in German and English, and food and drinks are sold on board.
Main Tower is a skyscraper in the banking district with Frankfurt's highest viewing platform, 200 meters up. A high-speed elevator climbs to the enclosed 55th floor, then stairs lead to the open-air deck above.
On a clear day kids can trace the river Main and spot the Taunus hills, and a free AR app labels cities on the horizon. A poor pick for anyone uneasy with heights or wind.
Monkey Town Frankfurt is an indoor play hall inside the NordWestZentrum mall, by the Praunheimer Steg entrance. Kids work through slides, a ball pit, a volcano, a spider tower, a kart track, a multisport area and a laser tag arena, while under-4s have a separate toddler zone. Parents can watch from the bistro tables. Air conditioning keeps it cool on hot days.
Frankfurt Zoo packs more than 450 species into 11 hectares, from gorillas, bonobos and orangutans in the Borgori Forest ape house to seals, Humboldt penguins, giraffes and okapi outside. The Exotarium has a tropical rainforest pool and leafcutter ants, and the Grzimek House holds small animals like mouse lemurs and bats.
Kids can pet dwarf goats and run off steam on the big sand playground.
Mainfest is Frankfurt's old riverside folk festival, rooted in a fishermen's feast from the Middle Ages. The Main embankment and the Römerberg fill with traditional rides, a Ferris wheel, regional food stalls and a culture program.
Kids tend to remember the Fischerstechen: jousters in historical costume stand on narrow boats and try to push each other into the river with padded poles. It suits families who enjoy a busy fair.
A former villa garden on the northern edge of the Stadtwald, now a city park of about 10 hectares. The play area is kept separate from the garden and built for under-12s: climbing castles, slides, swings, seesaws, sandpits, a merry-go-round and table tennis.
A big lawn draws older kids for football and frisbee, while clipped hedges and rhododendrons keep the garden side quiet.
A hands-on family workshop in the Jewish Museum's Studio Aleph. Kids and adults bake sufganiyot together, the sweet-filled doughnuts fried in oil that Jewish families eat at Hanukkah to recall the miracle of the oil.
Along the way, children learn the festival's customs through play, and everyone takes the recipe home. No baking experience needed, so it suits curious first-timers as well as families who already celebrate.
Larifari plays handmade indie pop and disco funk for kids and grown-ups together, with electric guitars and gentle vocals. The hall has no seats, so everyone can dance, sing and join in. The songs are about not letting anyone talk you down and never losing your courage, with diversity and inclusion built in.
This time the band plays with Tonstudio 13, a project of Gesamtkunstwerk e.V. from Dortmund.
Schneekönigin is a stage musical of The Snow Queen fairy tale, sung and spoken in German, put on for families at the Jahrhunderthalle.
It suits kids who already follow a story in German and can sit through a full-length show. Children who don't understand German will get less from it, since the songs and dialogue carry the plot.
A thermal bath and leisure pool under a domed roof, with two giant slides, water cannons, current pools, a waterfall and whirlpools. Older kids jump from the 1m and 3m boards or swim lengths in the 25m sports pool.
Toddlers have a separate area with its own pool, water toys, a small slide and a changing room, and there is a large outdoor pool area too.
A small music theater under the trees of the Palmengarten: a green arched hall with 199 seats on steep raked seating, so kids in the back rows still see the stage. Afternoon shows turn fairy tales and children's books into sung stories, from Frau Holle (set to Mozart) to Räuber Hotzenplotz. Everything is performed in German. Evenings belong to operetta and opera for grown-ups.
Waldspielpark Louisa is a city-run play park among the trees of the Frankfurt Stadtwald, with sandy play areas, swings and a big wooden ship to climb. In summer, a splash field and a paddling pool no deeper than 35 cm give kids a way to cool off.
Toilets are on site, and a kiosk sits on the road in front of the park. Dogs are not allowed inside.
Riedbad is a city-run pool complex with an indoor hall and a large summer outdoor pool. Indoors there is a 25m pool with 1m and 3m boards and a 33°C learner pool.
Outdoors, kids get a heated play pool with a slide, a shaded splash pool with water toys, a 5m diving platform, a big playground, a play lawn, table tennis and beach volleyball.
Eight to twelve is the age when kids want the real version: a proper workshop, a race with a number on their shirt, a festival they can stay up for. This list gathers the plans whose age rule includes this band, from museum workshops to runs, concerts and shows. It updates as new dates come in, so check back before each weekend.
A hands-on workshop at EXPERIMINTA, Frankfurt's science center, built around air and air pressure. Kids measure how fast things fall, build rockets that fly on the recoil principle, and make chocolate marshmallow treats (Schaumküsse) burst.
It starts from questions kids ask, like why nobody falls off a round Earth and how a metal plane can fly. Good for curious kids who like to build and test things.
A drop-off workshop at the Senckenberg built around one question: did dinosaurs have scales or feathers? Kids start with a guided look at the skeletons and what they reveal about color and body shape, then make their own dino models together.
It is part of the museum's monthly Expedition Museum series. Kids take part without a parent, so it suits curious kids who are happy in a group.
EXPERIMINTA, Frankfurt's hands-on science center in Bockenheim, runs an evening show series called Nacht im Museum, and the December edition has a Christmas theme.
The Scientastic team puts on big, showy experiments, and some kids get called up on stage to help. It suits school-age kids who like their science loud and bright, and who can stay sharp past their usual bedtime.
Waiting for the Christkind can feel endless, so Zoo Frankfurt gives kids something to do with their hands. Together with the animal keepers, they craft tasty presents for some of the zoo animals.
Then they stay to watch the animals enjoy their special meal. It suits kids who like animals and making things.
A girl arrives in a new city and wonders if she belongs. Somewhere, a zebra has been spotted. As the two wander through the crowds, the city builds itself around them like a life-size pop-up picture book, with music and surprising transformations.
A Scottish-German premiere by TheaterGrueneSosse and Tortoise in a Nutshell, played with very little spoken German, so kids still learning the language can follow along.
In the Grand Hotel, the instruments of four visiting musicians vanish without a trace, and soon nobody can keep track of anything. Who is behind the thefts?
The Federspiel ensemble tells the whole story without words, through humor, misunderstandings and plenty of live music. Kids follow it by watching and listening, so it suits families who speak no German and children who like a bit of chaos on stage.
A poetry slam where the kids are the jury. Well-known adult slammers from across Germany take the stage with texts they wrote themselves, and the children in the audience score each one and decide who gets the crown.
It suits kids who enjoy rhymes, raps and stories, and who follow spoken German easily, since the words are the whole show.
A staffed adventure playground on 5,000 square meters inside the Riederwald forest, open since 1973. Instead of ready-made equipment, kids get boards, beams, ropes, hammers, nails and saws from the tool hut and build their own towers and dens.
There is mud, sand and water to dig in, a fire pit, and a play house with a kitchen and toilet. Staff hand out tools and lend a hand when asked.
The city's children's museum sits inside the Historisches Museum by the river. Its current exhibition, Damals 1410, is a walk-through game: kids time-travel to a medieval town, help a builder raise a castle with AI, work as influencers at the smithy and put out a fire, earning badges for skills like spotting fake news.
Orange family-trail stations in the main museum let kids mint a coin or make a cartoon.
A big special exhibition on dragons, told through art and science together. European dragon-slayer paintings sit beside East Asian sky dragons, along with fossils and animal specimens that may have fed the old stories.
Kids follow their own trail with Naseheiß, the museum dragon, using an activity booklet to hunt down six dragons. A reading corner and a drawing wall give younger visitors a break between rooms.
Hanau is the birthplace of the Brothers Grimm, and since 1985 the city has staged their fairy tales outdoors in the park of Schloss Philippsruhe. Each season brings three new fairy-tale productions, a musical, a play with music and a family play, plus plays for older teens and adults. Shows are in German, so this suits kids who follow a story by watching.
The Bundesbank's museum about money and how it works. The exhibition sits on one level with a lift, and a coffee shop is on the same floor. It suits kids who like coins, cash and how banks work, and fits a short visit better than a full day.
Humperdinck's fairy-tale opera, staged by Keith Warner. Two siblings get lost in the woods and meet a gingerbread-house witch, and the Frankfurt Opera Children's Choir joins in. It is sung in German with German and English surtitles, so kids who know the Grimm story can follow along. Best for kids who can sit through a full opera.
A hands-on printing workshop where kids and parents make Hanukkah greeting cards together. Using a few different printing techniques, families print menorahs, candles and other symbols of the Jewish festival of lights, and pick up the story and customs of Hanukkah along the way.
No printing experience needed. Everyone takes their cards home, ready to give to grandparents, teachers or friends.
A classic circus in a big-top tent that sets up in Frankfurt every Christmas, now in its 13th edition. The 2026 show is headlined by Nomuna, a 14-person teeterboard troupe from Mongolia that won a Silver Clown at this year's Monte-Carlo circus festival.
Around them: the Bello Sisters' hand-balancing act, an aerial ring duo, a fast juggler and a knife-and-crossbow pair. Best for kids who can sit through a long show.
Wonderworld is the brand-new touring show from Andreas and Chris Ehrlich, the star magicians known as the Ehrlich Brothers. It is a big stage show of illusions and effects in the Festhalle, pitched at parents and kids alike.
The brothers present it in German, so it suits kids who are happy watching the tricks unfold even if they miss some of the talk.
Frankfurt's Fastnacht clubs bring their youngest dance troupes to one stage for a day of Gardetanz (guard dance) and show dance. Kids in matching uniforms march, kick and do splits in tight formation while judges score each routine.
It suits children who like costumes and music, and anyone curious to see the local carnival from the inside. Toddlers may tire of a long run of similar routines.
Frankfurt's city museum of archaeology fills the medieval church of a former Carmelite monastery and traces the region from its first farmers, about 7,500 years ago, to the 20th century.
Standouts include a Celtic prince's grave from the city forest, Roman finds from the town of Nida with reliefs from four Mithras temples, a Roman painter's grave, and objects from ancient Egypt, Greece and Cyprus.
The Jewish Museum tells the story of Frankfurt's Jews from around 1800 to today, across three floors of the Rothschild Palais, the former home of the banking family. Every floor has hands-on stations and labels written for kids, alongside films, media stations and art.
The last room holds everyday objects, letters and photos from Anne Frank's Frankfurt family. It suits school-age kids with some patience for history more than toddlers.
The DAM fills an old villa on the Museumsufer with a white "house within a house" that architect Oswald Mathias Ungers built in 1984, climbing from the basement to a gabled top floor under a glass roof.
The permanent exhibition, "From Primitive Hut to Skyscraper", tells the story of building through 25 model dioramas. Temporary shows on cities and design change through the year.
LaserZone Frankfurt is a 1,140 m² laser tag arena on several levels, with towers, platforms and glowing corridors. Players wear vests and infrared phasers and pick from more than 40 missions, solo or in teams, after a short briefing from staff.
Games are sold as timed flat-rate blocks, and a lounge sells drinks, pizza and snacks between rounds.
An indoor mini golf course where 18 holes run through rooms of graffiti painted in UV neon paint and lit by blacklight. Special 3D glasses make the walls pop and the ball seem to float over obstacles. Holes include an XXL loop, pinball-style lanes and play across two floors. It suits school-age kids; the holes get tricky for younger ones.
Fraport's Visitors' Center is built around hands-on stations: kids can guide an Airbus A320neo into its parking spot with real marshalling sticks, fight a simulated fire, play apron controller, and explore a 55 m² model of the airport on tablets. A panoramic window looks onto the apron.
Guided bus tours also drive out past refueling planes, takeoffs and landings, with a live guide taking questions.
Römerberg is Frankfurt's historic main square. On one side stands the Römer, city hall since the 15th century, with stepped Gothic gables; facing it is the Ostzeile, a row of half-timbered houses, each with its own name.
Kids can spot Justitia on the Justice Fountain, holding scales and a sword without a blindfold. Most buildings are reconstructions: the old town was largely destroyed in 1944.
A staffed adventure playground on the northwest edge of Günthersburgpark, where kids borrow hammers, saws and paint from the tool hut and build their own wooden huts. There is also a wooden climbing castle with a bouldering wall, a hillside slide, a campfire pit, a soccer field and a sand area.
The building zone keeps loose boards and nails on purpose, and staff teach kids to handle the risk.
A supervised adventure playground built as a Wild West town, a nod to the American families who once lived in the nearby housing areas. Kids find a stagecoach, wooden horses, a rocket with a roller slide, a mini Grand Canyon, and a water play area with streams for damming and mini canoes. Staff build huts with kids and fire up a bake house for flatbread and bread.
The Museum für Kommunikation traces how people send messages, from cuneiform tablets to glasses with built-in AI, across 2,500 square meters and 46 themed islands with no set route. Kids can try dozens of interactive stations and put questions to a talking painting of the computer scientist Alan Turing, which answers visitors. It suits curious school-age kids more than toddlers.
A whole medieval castle turns into a Christmas market. Small stalls fill the rooms of Burg Ronneburg with crafts, gift ideas, waffles and mulled wine, and outside the walls a medieval market adds traders and craftspeople. A living nativity play tells the Christmas story.
It suits kids who like castles and costumes, and families happy to wander, browse and snack.
An evening walk through Frankfurt's botanical garden, lit by about 30 light installations. Giant glowing moons, snowdrops and floating hearts hang over the paths and trees, with music, video projections and a few interactive light pieces along the way.
The route is outdoors and on foot, so it suits kids who can walk a while in the cold. Younger ones tend to like the big, bright shapes most.
The Grosser Rat, the umbrella group of Frankfurt's carnival clubs, puts on a Fastnacht afternoon made for kids. On stage, children host and dance in costume, and the city's Kinderprinzenpaar and Prinzenpaar make an appearance.
Around the hall there's face painting, a balloon artist, game stations and a Bobby Car race. It suits kids who like dressing up and noise. Costumes for kids and adults are welcome.
Mainz's Rosenmontagszug is the biggest day of the city's Fastnacht: a long parade of decorated floats, marching carnival guards in uniform, brass bands and the Schwellköpp, the oversized papier-mâché heads that star in the 2027 motto.
Kids line the curb in costume, shout "Helau" and catch sweets thrown from the wagons. It suits families happy in big crowds; with a stroller, pick a spot early or see little.
Dippemess is Frankfurt's big traditional funfair, held twice a year on the fairground next to the Eissporthalle. Kids ride classic carousels, spinning rides, a roller coaster and the Ferris wheel, which looks out over the city at dusk.
Between rides there's cotton candy, crêpes and candied almonds. It suits kids who love rides and can handle noise, bright lights and evening crowds.
Schwanheimer Düne is a 58-hectare nature reserve on an inland sand dune, formed from Main riverbed sand after the last Ice Age. A wooden boardwalk loops through pine trees, silver grass and open sand, with information boards. Kids have to stay on the boards to protect the lichens, which makes it a car-free stretch for running. Look for herons fishing in the Schmitt'sche Grube, a former sand pit.
The Ebbelwei-Express is a 1950s tram painted inside and out as a traveling cider pub, with cartoon artwork and seats for 22. It runs a one-hour loop from the Zoo past the Römer, the main station, the trade fair and Sachsenhausen. Every rider gets a bottle of apple juice, water or cider and a bag of pretzels. No guide rides along, but the website has an audio tour.
Friday's Bowling is a large bowling hall with more than 25 lanes, interactive scoring screens and bumpers that keep a beginner's ball out of the gutter. Light balls start at 2.5 kg and rental shoes at size 24, so small kids can bowl properly.
Between games there are billiard tables, darts, shuffleboard and arcade machines, and the Eco Kart electric go-kart track sits 50 meters away.
A film museum on the Museumsufer in Sachsenhausen, with a permanent exhibition over two floors. Kids spin zoetropes, peer into peep-boxes, work a magic lantern and watch the Main and the skyline appear in a camera obscura.
The second part centers on the Film Room, with clips playing across four big screens, plus stations on how camera angles, sound and editing change a scene. The basement cinema runs regular family screenings.
Dialogmuseum runs Dialog im Dunkeln, a tour through four rooms with no light. Groups of up to eight follow a blind or visually impaired guide, finding their way with a white cane, their hands and their ears. The last room is the DunkelBar, where the group orders a drink in the dark and talks with the guide. Anyone can leave at any point, though there is no way back in.
A hands-on science center with around 200 experiment stations over four floors, covering math, computer science, natural science and technology. Kids stand inside a giant eye, lie on a bed of nails, watch sand jump to sound on Chladni plates and power a light bulb themselves.
A puzzle room tests patience, and one exhibit looks into the black hole at the heart of the Milky Way. Suits curious school-age kids.
An outdoor ice rink in the Kurpark, set in front of the historic Kaiser-Wilhelms-Bad, with the decorated Brunnenallee and a huge Christmas tree beside it. Kids can take their first wobbly laps or practice spins.
Families can also book a lane for Eisstockschießen, a German curling game played in teams of four or five. A chalet next to the rink sells hot drinks and warm snacks.
The Kinderweihnachtsmarkt is the kids' corner of the Frankfurt Christmas market, set on the Mainkai just east of the Eiserner Steg.
Kids get a mix of hands-on activities and festive attractions, so it suits families who want a market stop built around the children. Parents can carry on to the rest of the Christmas market afterward.
One of Germany's largest mobile ice rinks fills the Bowling Green lawn in front of Wiesbaden's Kurhaus each winter, with skaters looping around the two historic fountains on 100-meter laps.
Rental skates, skating aids for wobbly beginners and lockers are on site, and ice-stock lanes (Bavarian-style curling) sit right in front of the Kurhaus. It suits first-timers and confident skaters alike.
Fastnacht weekend brings two parades into Frankfurt's old town. Saturday's children's parade is short and made for kids, followed by the carnival prince and princess storming the Römer, the city hall, for its keys.
Sunday's big parade is the main event: floats, carnival guards in uniform, marching bands and dance troupes, with sweets thrown into the crowd. It suits families who can handle crowds and noise.
Klaa Paris, the local nickname for Heddernheim, has held a carnival parade through its narrow village lanes since 1839, making it the oldest in Frankfurt. Around 1,500 carnival club members, marching bands and floats wind through the old center, throwing sweets (Kamelle) into the crowd.
Expect big crowds, with around 100,000 people along the route, so it suits kids who don't mind noise and being packed in.
Wäldchestag is Frankfurt's own folk festival, a fair that sets up among the trees of the Stadtwald around Oberforsthaus. Kids get a Ferris wheel, chair swings, carousels and prize stalls, while parents sit in beer gardens with apple wine and sausages in the shade.
Afternoons suit families best. Evenings lean toward adults, with stage music and drinks until late.
A paint-your-own-pottery studio with more than 300 blank ceramic pieces to choose from, from mugs and plates to animal figures. Staff show the basic glazing techniques, kids help themselves to paints and brushes, and the studio fires the finished piece for pickup on a set date.
There are also clay classes, including a family session where kids of any age build small projects by hand.
KeramikZauber is a paint-your-own-pottery studio on Schweizer Straße in Sachsenhausen. Kids pick a blank piece from the shelves (mugs, plates, bowls, vases or figures) and decorate it with brushes, stamps, sponges and stencils. No experience needed.
The studio glazes and fires every piece afterward, and the finished work is collected later. It suits kids happy to focus on one project; younger ones need a parent painting alongside.
The west tower of the Kaiserdom, the church where Holy Roman emperors were crowned, rises 95 meters over the Altstadt. A narrow spiral staircase of 328 steps climbs to a viewing platform 66 meters up, with views over the Römerberg, the Main and the skyscrapers, and on clear days the Taunus hills. There is no elevator, so it suits kids who can manage a steep, steady climb.
Kleinmarkthalle is the city's covered food market, open since 1954, with more than 60 stalls across over 1,500 square meters. Traders sell fruit, vegetables, meat, fish, cheese, bread and international deli food, and small food stands serve meals to eat on the spot.
Kids can try the local specialties at the stalls, like Frankfurter sausages and Grüne Soße, the city's green herb sauce.
KiBi is the city library's central branch for children and teens, on the ground floor of the Saalbau Bornheim. Shelves run from picture books and non-fiction to magazines and children's books in other languages.
Teens get their own TeenLounge with console games, DVDs and manga, and the weekly TechnoTHEK lets kids try hands-on tech kits alongside a parent.
Theaterhaus Frankfurt is an independent theater for children and teenagers, with two small stages seating 80 to 120. Frankfurt's independent ensembles premiere their own plays here, from puppet and clown shows for toddlers to drama for teens, and international guest companies visit for the Starke Stücke festival. Plays are performed in German.
Storytellers also run fairy-tale Sundays for families on the little stage in the theater café.
The Städel holds 700 years of European art, from Dürer and Botticelli to Rembrandt, Monet, Picasso and Gerhard Richter, in a building on the Museumsufer riverbank.
Kids get their own program: family tours that turn paintings into stories, studio workshops where they paint or draw and take their work home, and Imagoras, a tablet game for children. It suits kids who like to draw and look closely.
Lohrberg is a 185-meter hill on the northeast edge of town, and the city's only vineyard grows on its south slope. Apple orchard meadows cover much of the hill, and the MainÄppelHaus orchard center explains the trees and Frankfurt's apple wine.
At the top, the Lohrpark has a big flat lawn for ball games, a playground, and wide views of the skyline. Walking and cycling paths wind through the orchards.
Hafenpark is a 40,000-square-meter park on the Main riverbank, right below the European Central Bank tower. Its Concrete Jungle skate park draws amateur and pro skaters, and a second, smaller skate area is set aside for kids.
Around it sit basketball, volleyball, badminton and soccer courts, a climbing course, playgrounds, outdoor fitness equipment, and open lawns with wide wooden loungers for picnics.
Alter Flugplatz Bonames was Maurice Rose Airfield, a US military airfield until 1992. Since the early 2000s it has been part of the GrünGürtel, the city's green belt: the fences came down, the asphalt was broken up, and ponds and wild meadows grew in.
Kids run, bike and scoot along the old runway, now narrowed and left to nature. A picnic meadow sits beside a snack kiosk with long tables.
Heinrich-Kraft-Park is a forest play park in the Fechenheim woods. Its centerpiece is a wooden climbing frame of tree towers joined by walkways, with two long steel tube slides.
The Tabaluga Village is an inclusive play area built so kids with and without disabilities can play side by side. Older kids head for the roller skating rink, the basketball court and the football pitches.
The Stadtwald covers about 5,000 hectares on the city's south side, with some 450 km of paths for walking, biking and running. For kids, the main draws are the forest playgrounds (Waldspielparks).
The one at the Goetheturm sits under tall trees, with slides, swings, climbing towers, a wooden maze and a mud play area. Next door, 196 steps climb the 43-meter wooden tower to a skyline view.
A forest play park in the Stadtwald, built around a water spray field where kids run through the jets on hot days. There is a separate children's play area and an 18-hole mini golf course with large wooden figures.
The sports side has a roller skating rink, table tennis, a basketball court and a soccer field. A kiosk and toilets are on site.
The city-run ice rink joins a large indoor rink, a smaller beginner rink and a 400-meter outdoor ring around the stadium into one connected sheet of ice, the largest in Germany. Boards line the indoor rinks, so first-timers have something to hold. Skates rent on site in sizes 23 to 50, the shop sells gliders for very young skaters, and the Cool Running bar has snacks.
Main Bad Bornheim is the Frankfurter Bäder leisure pool next to the Ostpark. Kids head for the 74-meter tube slide and the wide slide, then the spray park with jets, a water tree, a cascade and a tipping bucket. Toddlers get their own splash pool.
There is also a warm bubble pool, plus a 25-meter pool with a movable floor, a 1-meter board and a 3-meter platform for confident swimmers.
Superfly Frankfurt is a trampoline park of nearly 4,000 m². Its standout is the Zip Out, a zip line that carries jumpers over the hall.
Around it are open trampoline courts, a ninja obstacle run, a 15-meter tumbling lane, basketball dunk lanes, a trapeze swing, and a foam pit and giant airbag for big drops. It suits kids who want to burn energy; nervous jumpers can stay on the courts.
The Frankfurt section of the German Alpine Club (DAV) runs this climbing center, with over 1,700 square meters of walls spread across an indoor hall and an outdoor area. There are top-rope and lead routes, autobelay lines, and a small bouldering room upstairs with a big panorama window.
It suits families with some belaying experience. Complete beginners can start with a coached taster session.
A high-ropes climbing forest beside the Waldstadion, the Eintracht Frankfurt stadium, with 13 courses and about 150 climbing elements. Younger kids start on the Bambini courses, older ones move up through intermediate and expert routes to the Skyline course 30 meters up. Five tall towers look out over the stadium and the skyline. Everyone climbs on a continuous safety system after a briefing from staff.
A 20-hectare botanical garden in the Westend with around 13,000 plant species. Indoors, kids walk through the 1869 Palm House, the Tropicarium's rainforest and desert glasshouses, a carnivorous plant collection with Venus flytraps, and a butterfly house where pupae hatch in view.
Outside are a large playground with a water play area, a shaded playground above the pond, rental boats in summer and a mini golf course.
A natural history museum built around a dinosaur hall, where a Tyrannosaurus, a Triceratops and a long-necked Diplodocus stand over the floor. Other galleries cover whales and elephants, the deep sea, coral reefs, insects, and 47-million-year-old fossils from the nearby Messel Pit.
In the Aha?! Science Lab, kids handle more than 100 natural objects, look at them under microscopes and help sort samples for real research projects.
Hessentag is Hesse's state festival, hosted by a different town each year. In 2027 it comes to Idstein, a half-timbered old town in the Taunus hills that last hosted it in 2002. Expect live music, food stalls, local clubs and, by tradition, a big costume parade.
For kids, the draw is "Der Natur auf der Spur", a family nature area in the Wörsbachaue meadows, run by the state environment ministry with HessenForst.
Boulderwelt Frankfurt is a large bouldering gym: rope-free climbing on short walls over padded floors. Kids get their own area with child-sized holds, split into a course section modeled on the adult walls and a jungle-themed zone for the youngest climbers.
Older kids can also climb with an adult in a mixed section of the main hall, and parents get a lounge with coffee.
A sightseeing boat on the Main that leaves from the Eiserner Steg footbridge, a short walk from the Römer. One loop heads upriver toward Gerbermühle, the other downriver toward the Griesheim lock, and the long trip does both. Kids can sit on the open top deck and watch the bank towers and bridges slide past. Commentary is in German and English, and food and drinks are sold on board.
Main Tower is a skyscraper in the banking district with Frankfurt's highest viewing platform, 200 meters up. A high-speed elevator climbs to the enclosed 55th floor, then stairs lead to the open-air deck above.
On a clear day kids can trace the river Main and spot the Taunus hills, and a free AR app labels cities on the horizon. A poor pick for anyone uneasy with heights or wind.
Monkey Town Frankfurt is an indoor play hall inside the NordWestZentrum mall, by the Praunheimer Steg entrance. Kids work through slides, a ball pit, a volcano, a spider tower, a kart track, a multisport area and a laser tag arena, while under-4s have a separate toddler zone. Parents can watch from the bistro tables. Air conditioning keeps it cool on hot days.
Frankfurt Zoo packs more than 450 species into 11 hectares, from gorillas, bonobos and orangutans in the Borgori Forest ape house to seals, Humboldt penguins, giraffes and okapi outside. The Exotarium has a tropical rainforest pool and leafcutter ants, and the Grzimek House holds small animals like mouse lemurs and bats.
Kids can pet dwarf goats and run off steam on the big sand playground.
Mainfest is Frankfurt's old riverside folk festival, rooted in a fishermen's feast from the Middle Ages. The Main embankment and the Römerberg fill with traditional rides, a Ferris wheel, regional food stalls and a culture program.
Kids tend to remember the Fischerstechen: jousters in historical costume stand on narrow boats and try to push each other into the river with padded poles. It suits families who enjoy a busy fair.
A former villa garden on the northern edge of the Stadtwald, now a city park of about 10 hectares. The play area is kept separate from the garden and built for under-12s: climbing castles, slides, swings, seesaws, sandpits, a merry-go-round and table tennis.
A big lawn draws older kids for football and frisbee, while clipped hedges and rhododendrons keep the garden side quiet.
A hands-on family workshop in the Jewish Museum's Studio Aleph. Kids and adults bake sufganiyot together, the sweet-filled doughnuts fried in oil that Jewish families eat at Hanukkah to recall the miracle of the oil.
Along the way, children learn the festival's customs through play, and everyone takes the recipe home. No baking experience needed, so it suits curious first-timers as well as families who already celebrate.
Larifari plays handmade indie pop and disco funk for kids and grown-ups together, with electric guitars and gentle vocals. The hall has no seats, so everyone can dance, sing and join in. The songs are about not letting anyone talk you down and never losing your courage, with diversity and inclusion built in.
This time the band plays with Tonstudio 13, a project of Gesamtkunstwerk e.V. from Dortmund.
Schneekönigin is a stage musical of The Snow Queen fairy tale, sung and spoken in German, put on for families at the Jahrhunderthalle.
It suits kids who already follow a story in German and can sit through a full-length show. Children who don't understand German will get less from it, since the songs and dialogue carry the plot.
A thermal bath and leisure pool under a domed roof, with two giant slides, water cannons, current pools, a waterfall and whirlpools. Older kids jump from the 1m and 3m boards or swim lengths in the 25m sports pool.
Toddlers have a separate area with its own pool, water toys, a small slide and a changing room, and there is a large outdoor pool area too.
A small music theater under the trees of the Palmengarten: a green arched hall with 199 seats on steep raked seating, so kids in the back rows still see the stage. Afternoon shows turn fairy tales and children's books into sung stories, from Frau Holle (set to Mozart) to Räuber Hotzenplotz. Everything is performed in German. Evenings belong to operetta and opera for grown-ups.
Waldspielpark Louisa is a city-run play park among the trees of the Frankfurt Stadtwald, with sandy play areas, swings and a big wooden ship to climb. In summer, a splash field and a paddling pool no deeper than 35 cm give kids a way to cool off.
Toilets are on site, and a kiosk sits on the road in front of the park. Dogs are not allowed inside.
Riedbad is a city-run pool complex with an indoor hall and a large summer outdoor pool. Indoors there is a 25m pool with 1m and 3m boards and a 33°C learner pool.
Outdoors, kids get a heated play pool with a slide, a shaded splash pool with water toys, a 5m diving platform, a big playground, a play lawn, table tennis and beach volleyball.
