Days out with an under-three run on different rules: short attention spans, nap windows and a stroller that has to come too. We gathered the places and events that welcome babies and toddlers, from playgrounds and indoor play rooms to libraries and shows made for the very youngest.
A city-run playground with sandboxes, swings and climbing frames, plus a separate fenced yard for small children, a paddling pool in summer, and floorball goals and equipment. A small cowshed with wooden animals, a playhouse and a storage shed set up pretend play.
Families can meet and play indoors or outdoors year-round, heat their own food and make coffee or tea, and join free guided activities in the mornings.
Pikkuisten joulu is Helsinki City Museum's cozy family Christmas event. Babies and toddlers get winter rhymes, songs and storytime, while older kids do crafts, like a Christmas tree candy workshop, and watch Magician Kari's tricks.
Santa visits, and so does Rudi the guide dog with owner Tiina. In the museum's Children's Town, kids can try a self-guided task trail and help grandma's house get ready for an old-fashioned Christmas.
A City of Helsinki playground with a computer theme. Outside there are sandboxes, swings, climbing frames, trampolines, computer-themed play equipment and a separate fenced yard for small children. Older kids get a basketball hoop, a sand soccer field with goals, a ping pong table and floorball gear.
In the playground building, families can heat their own food, make coffee or tea, and use the baby changing table.
Teatteri Hevosenkenkä is a children's theater founded in 1975 in a former elementary school in Juhannusmäki, Mankkaa. Shows play in a 130-seat auditorium with rising rows, and on Tusculum, a small stage behind the main building. The program includes puppet and object theater.
Galleria Hevosenkenkä, opened in 2000, hosts changing exhibitions, and workshops and courses run downstairs. In 2015 the theater won Finland's children's and youth theater prize.
A gentle stage show about feelings for toddlers and preschoolers, built from Eppu Nuotio's poems in the picture book Minä tykkään nyt. When does joy start? Where do you feel it when you like something? What do you do with sadness that hits out of nowhere, or anger that won't pass? It ends with a play session where kids explore the feelings themselves.
Nukketeatteri Sampo is a professional puppet theater founded in 1977, with its own stage, a puppet gallery and the Fairytale Cafe at Erottajankatu 7. Every in-house show has live music played on stage, and none has frightening content.
The program runs from short baby shows to seasonal ones like Kekri, plus workshops, birthday parties and an evening series for adults.
Days out with an under-three run on different rules: short attention spans, nap windows and a stroller that has to come too. We gathered the places and events that welcome babies and toddlers, from playgrounds and indoor play rooms to libraries and shows made for the very youngest.
A city-run playground with sandboxes, swings and climbing frames, plus a separate fenced yard for small children, a paddling pool in summer, and floorball goals and equipment. A small cowshed with wooden animals, a playhouse and a storage shed set up pretend play.
Families can meet and play indoors or outdoors year-round, heat their own food and make coffee or tea, and join free guided activities in the mornings.
Pikkuisten joulu is Helsinki City Museum's cozy family Christmas event. Babies and toddlers get winter rhymes, songs and storytime, while older kids do crafts, like a Christmas tree candy workshop, and watch Magician Kari's tricks.
Santa visits, and so does Rudi the guide dog with owner Tiina. In the museum's Children's Town, kids can try a self-guided task trail and help grandma's house get ready for an old-fashioned Christmas.
A City of Helsinki playground with a computer theme. Outside there are sandboxes, swings, climbing frames, trampolines, computer-themed play equipment and a separate fenced yard for small children. Older kids get a basketball hoop, a sand soccer field with goals, a ping pong table and floorball gear.
In the playground building, families can heat their own food, make coffee or tea, and use the baby changing table.
Teatteri Hevosenkenkä is a children's theater founded in 1975 in a former elementary school in Juhannusmäki, Mankkaa. Shows play in a 130-seat auditorium with rising rows, and on Tusculum, a small stage behind the main building. The program includes puppet and object theater.
Galleria Hevosenkenkä, opened in 2000, hosts changing exhibitions, and workshops and courses run downstairs. In 2015 the theater won Finland's children's and youth theater prize.
A gentle stage show about feelings for toddlers and preschoolers, built from Eppu Nuotio's poems in the picture book Minä tykkään nyt. When does joy start? Where do you feel it when you like something? What do you do with sadness that hits out of nowhere, or anger that won't pass? It ends with a play session where kids explore the feelings themselves.
Nukketeatteri Sampo is a professional puppet theater founded in 1977, with its own stage, a puppet gallery and the Fairytale Cafe at Erottajankatu 7. Every in-house show has live music played on stage, and none has frightening content.
The program runs from short baby shows to seasonal ones like Kekri, plus workshops, birthday parties and an evening series for adults.
