Children's Day and May Festivals for Kids in Lisbon

IndieJúnior is the children's section of IndieLisboa, Lisbon's independent film festival. Instead of the usual blockbusters, kids watch short and feature films from around the world: animation, documentary and fiction, each session programmed for a specific age group.

Family screenings open with a short presentation, and the audience votes for the IndieJúnior Audience Award, so kids get a real say. Babies have their own Baby Cinema sessions with a parent.

CuCu! is a festival of theater, music, dance and storytelling made for babies and preschoolers, run by the Lua Cheia company at Casa do Coreto, its small theater in Carnide.

Shows are short and close-up, and many invite kids in: crawling over textured floors, chasing bubbles, playing with instruments and sounds. It suits a first theater outing. Kids past preschool will find it too young.

FIMFA Lx is Portugal's main puppet theater festival, programmed every year since 2001 by the Lisbon puppet company A Tarumba. Companies from around the world bring shadow play, object theater, puppets and poetic machines to the city's theaters.

Not every show is meant for children. The organizer marks a family-friendly strand each edition, and that is where to start. It suits kids who can sit through a full show.

Each May, Lisbon's museums mark International Museum Day with open doors and extra programming. Many city museums waive entry, and several add family workshops, guided visits and live music.

Recent editions brought puppet-making, a Baroque ball with acrobats, and crochet and printing ateliers for families. It suits families happy to pick one or two museums and build a relaxed day around them.

Lisbon's big open-air book fair fills the slopes of Parque Eduardo VII with hundreds of publisher and bookshop stalls, many selling below cover price. Kids head for the children's area, with storytimes, author events and visits from favorite book characters.

Nearly everything is in Portuguese, so it suits young readers of the language most, though the park, the crowds and the evening buzz work for any family.

A long weekend of kids' culture in Jardins do Bombarda, the pine-shaded garden in the old Miguel Bombarda hospital grounds in Arroios. Families wander between short theater pieces, family concerts, contemporary circus, miniature box theater watched one child at a time, and traditional group games, with a kids' market and children's book fair on the weekend. Most of it is drop-in, so an hour works as well as a day.

Pavilion of Knowledge is the Ciência Viva science center on the old Expo 98 site, and every exhibit is made to be touched. TCHARAN! is a science circus with a mirror maze, a musical floor and the Unfinished House, where kids in hard hats work cranes and pulleys. In Fishanário, a child's drawing of a sea creature is scanned and swims into a projected ocean.