Somewhere around eight, kids start asking for the real thing: a proper concert, a play with a plot, a show where they get pulled on stage. This list gathers the upcoming plays, concerts, exhibitions and outings that welcome kids from eight to twelve, sorted so the ones built around that age come first. Check each listing's age range, since some also suit younger siblings.
A night watchman leads kids along Munich's old city wall on his evening rounds, telling them how the city lived in the Middle Ages. Kids help him watch for shady characters and lock the city gates, or just listen if they prefer. The stories get a little spooky but are chosen for children, and it's less gory than the adult tour. Stay after for a photo with him.
A hands-on coding workshop at the Westend public library, part of its ENTER! digital learning series. Kids work with LEGO SPIKE, a kit that combines building, engineering and programming, and code what they build.
It is a playful first look at how computers "think", with lots of trying things out and tinkering. It suits curious kids who are happy following spoken instructions in German.
Magic Maxl is a magician so young he still goes to school, and not Hogwarts: an ordinary school where magic is strictly forbidden. He does it anyway, and kids see what he does with bad essays and how he solves a math problem.
It is comedy magic built around school life. The show is all in German, so it suits kids who follow spoken German, and primary-school kids most.
A hands-on chocolate workshop at Museum Mensch und Natur, in Schloss Nymphenburg. Kids find out where cocoa comes from, who harvests it and how a cocoa bean turns into a bar of chocolate.
It suits curious kids who like making things, with a grown-up alongside.
Münchner Marionettentheater stages Dickens' A Christmas Carol with hand puppets and live voices. Marley's ghost warns Scrooge, then three spirits show him his past, a family Christmas happening now, and a lonely future. Some moments are sad or spooky, including a sick child and Scrooge's own death, and the ending turns warm. Scrooge wakes up changed.
An open children's farm run by a nonprofit, where kids drop in without signing up and pitch in with the goats, chickens, runner ducks, rabbits, guinea pigs and bees.
The 5,000 m² grounds also hold playgrounds, a big pirate ship, a fire pit, a garden, and pottery, forge, wood and bike workshops. Kids don't feed the animals or enter the pens alone; staff help them get to know one.
A city farm and adventure playground on about 15,000 m², more than two soccer fields, with ponies, goats, sheep, pigs, rabbits and cats. Kids roam the grounds on their own: a treehouse, a play hill, fire pits, a woodworking shop, a garden and a pond for chilling out.
Staff run hands-on projects and seasonal parties, and regulars can sign up to help with stable and animal care.
Abenteuerspielplatz Neuhausen is an open-air yard where school kids handle hammers, nails and real tools, play with water and gather at the fire pit. Wild animals live on the grounds, signs show where to spot them, and a beekeeper looks after the hives by the workshop. Big play structures fill the rest.
The Kreisjugendring München-Stadt runs it as part of Oase Neuhausen.
Students from the Munich Music Seminar and their guests perform Christmas melodies and classical pieces from various eras. The program includes a gift-giving ceremony as part of this musical St. Nicholas celebration.
Conductor Thomas Gropper tells the Christmas story through Bach's Christmas Oratorio, stopping between excerpts to explain what kids are hearing: why the angels sound heavenly, why the shepherds go from amazed to excited, and what all the instruments in the orchestra are.
The Arcis-Vocalisten choir sings with the baroque orchestra L'Arpa festante and soloists. It suits curious school-age kids more than toddlers who need to move.
A musical fantasy story: Timmy and his friend Philipp travel across Europe by balloon, stopping in places like England, France and Italy to meet the people and hear their music.
The chamber ensemble of the Freies Landestheater Bayern plays melodies by Handel, Debussy, Vivaldi, Rossini and Charpentier. It suits school-age kids who are curious about instruments and other countries.
Dennis & Jesko Band are the trio behind the football songs on WUMMS, an online channel from NDR and Radio Bremen. Their concerts are a party: kids jump and sing at the front while surprisingly word-perfect parents stand further back.
Expect their big hit "Rambo Ramos" plus songs about Lewandowski, Mbappé, FC Bayern and Antonio Rüdiger. It suits football-mad kids who already know the songs.
CineKindl is the children's section of Filmfest München, Munich's big summer film festival. It shows new feature, animated, documentary and short films from Germany and around the world, with a jury and awards.
After each screening there is a Q&A, often with the filmmakers in the room, so kids can ask whatever the film made them wonder. It suits kids who follow German, since foreign films are dubbed live.
A small pottery workshop near the Englischer Garten, run by ceramicist Désirée Oberländer for about 40 years. Kids build with clay in groups of up to 10, with no set models: they shape their own pieces and group projects, then glaze and paint them themselves after firing.
Older kids can learn the electric potter's wheel, and the studio also hosts weekend theme workshops and birthday parties.
Maulwurfshausen is a staffed adventure playground in Neuperlach, laid out as a play town run by kids. They rent and build wooden huts, take on jobs, cook at a covered fire pit with an outdoor kitchen, and play on a football lawn and bird's-nest swing. A water slide opens on hot summer days, and a play house with table football, ping pong and a workshop covers rainy afternoons.
ABIX is a staffed adventure playground run by the Kreisjugendring München-Stadt. Kids build huts with hammers, saws and scrap timber, earning ABIX-Taler by raking leaves or pulling old nails to buy boards and paint. There's a rope swing over a pond, campfires and a free organic lunch. On rainy days the play house opens, with table football, ping pong and a padded romping room.
A family session in Robotic Worlds, the robot exhibition at Die Neue Sammlung, Munich's design museum. Kids and parents watch odd machines roll past on a conveyor belt, some shaped like dogs, sea creatures or cartoon characters, and talk about what each one can do and why it was built.
Then it turns hands-on: each kid draws a robot of their own, and gets to program a few real ones.
Klang Spiel Platz is a walk-in sound installation at the Schauburg, the city-run children's theater. Strings, wind and percussion instruments share the room with wood, metal, plastic and everyday objects, and kids get to bow, strike and blow all of it. Musicians and music teachers from the theater lead the family workshop and help kids find their own sounds. It suits curious kids who want to touch everything.
A new science-fiction adventure written and built by the Münchner Marionettentheater's own team. Professor Korbinian Fox and his assistant Rakete are finishing a time machine that still lacks one part. While they're out of the workshop, his niece Fania plays with it, the machine starts, and she vanishes. The chase through time is told with marionettes, puppets and recorded voices. It suits kids who can follow a longer story.
Polarwelten is an indoor exhibition about the Arctic and Antarctic. Kids meet polar bears, penguins and whales through pictures and interactive stations.
The main draw is a 360° room with a show of about 25 minutes, where glaciers, icebergs, underwater scenes and northern lights surround you. It suits curious kids who like animals.
A hands-on exhibition about where food comes from and what it does inside us. Kids milk a cow, turn milk into butter, grind grain into flour and play supermarket with a recipe in hand. A giant nose and an oversized tongue explain smell and taste, and a digestion station follows a bite through the body.
Artist Karin Traxler opens her print lab ahead of Christmas. You and your kid design postcards with winter motifs, print them yourselves and take the finished cards home.
It suits a kid who likes making things with their hands, and a family that would rather send its own cards than buy them.
Tollwood is Munich's alternative Christmas market, set up in big tents and open-air lanes on the Theresienwiese. Around 200 stalls sell crafts, clothing and gifts, much of it fair trade, and more than 50 stands cook certified organic food from many countries.
Walk-acts roam the grounds, a performance stage runs shows, and there is a kids' program. It suits families who want shows and food alongside the shopping.
A family horse show built around a fairy tale. Robert, a boy who has lost his imagination, travels through a winter wonderland to win it back, with fairies, wizards and a few villains along the way. Ponies, Lusitanos and liberty horses share the stage with trick riders, fire effects, stunts and comic actors. It suits horse fans, and kids who simply like a big, bright show.
A medieval festival on the grounds of Schloss Kaltenberg, a Bavarian castle west of Munich. Jugglers and musicians play on five stages, and a craft market, camps and food stands fill the site. The centerpiece is a staged jousting show in the arena, with horse stunts, sword fights and fire effects. On Family Sundays, kids then take the arena themselves in a children's tournament and are knighted at the end.
The Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz stages opera, operetta, musicals and ballet. Its family performances are shows kids can follow, such as Hänsel und Gretel, The Magic Flute and the ballet Aschenbrödel (Cinderella).
The Junges Gärtnerplatztheater team runs workshops where kids get to know a show's characters and plot through singing and play, plus morning concerts such as The Carnival of the Animals with Loriot's narration.
The Krone-Bau is the permanent home of Circus Krone, which tours Germany in summer and comes back here for its winter season. Shows fill the ring under a 3,000-seat roof, mixing classic circus (acrobats, clowns, animal acts) with modern routines.
A life-size statue of the clown Charlie Rivel stands at the entrance. Outside circus season, the building hosts concerts and other productions.
A 1,000 m² blacklight minigolf course where kids putt through glowing themed worlds, from jungle and dinosaurs to outer space and underwater scenes, wearing 3D glasses that make the neon pop.
A separate arcade zone has pinball and high-score machines, and TEAM-UP! runs game-show challenges in themed rooms for groups. It sits beside the Forum Schwanthalerhöhe mall, a short walk from Theresienwiese.
A 3,400-square-meter trampoline hall with 13 attractions. Next to the big FreeJUMP trampoline floor sit Ninja Warrior-style courses (the NinjaBridge and the points-based NinjaPod Arena), a soccer arena, and SurvivalJUMP, where jumpers try to outlast a spinning bar.
It suits kids who want to burn off energy and try a challenge. Parents can jump too, or wait in the café area.
Bavaria Filmstadt is the visitor side of a working film studio on Munich's southern edge. A guide walks groups through original sets and props: the U-boat model from "Das Boot", the classroom from "Fack ju Göhte" and the set from "Jim Knopf". Kids can act short scenes in front of a camera, then ride a 3D motion-seat cinema. An outdoor play tower by the entrance fills the wait.
The Volkssternwarte is a public observatory run by an astronomy society, with a solar-system exhibition, a Zeiss planetarium dome, and a rooftop platform nearly 30 meters up with five telescope domes.
Kids' planetarium shows tell space stories under a projected night sky. The children's tour visits all three stations and ends at the big telescopes, with views to the Alps on clear days.
A small natural history museum inside a former church on Neuhauser Straße, on three floors. The Forest Path walks through big wildlife dioramas, from riverbanks and meadows to Alpine peaks, and a chip card from the ticket desk unlocks screens, games and a buzzer quiz at the exit. On the fishing floor, kids walk on a projected water floor, meet talking fish and watch live fish in a recreated river.
The Munich Toy Museum fills four floors of the Old Town Hall tower on Marienplatz with the private collection of the Ivan Steiger family, spanning four centuries of play. Kids can look at model railways, steam engines, tin toys, teddy bears, dolls and dollhouses, wooden toys, Barbies and a wall of robots. The small tower rooms make it a short visit, and an audio guide can be downloaded in advance.
A hands-on museum built around one big interactive exhibition at a time, with stations, objects and workshop corners to touch, try and explore. The current show, "Iss was?!", is about food and the senses: kids milk a model cow, grind grain into flour, shop in a play supermarket and explore an oversized nose and tongue. Exhibition guides are on hand to help. A visit takes about 90 minutes.
A natural history museum in the north wing of Nymphenburg Palace. The heart of it is a quiz hall where kids press a button to answer questions about animals, and doors pop open or model animals sprint off. Pumuckl audio plays by cases of local wildlife.
Elsewhere: glittering minerals, the history of life, a hall on the brain, and Bruno, the brown bear who roamed Bavaria in 2006.
LUMAGICA is an outdoor light park, a walking loop of about 1.5 km through light installations after dark. This season's theme is Around the World in 80 Days.
It suits kids who are happy to walk a while on a cold winter evening. Younger kids who tire quickly may need a carrier or a ride on your shoulders for part of the loop.
An Advent market set up as a medieval Munich market scene, with detailed stalls, crafts and market food. Much of it ties back to the city's own history, such as the monk on its first city seal who later turned into the Münchner Kindl.
It suits kids who like knights, castles and old stories, and grown-ups after a more atmospheric Christmas market than the usual.
Candle Art is an Advent workshop for kids and teens at Sammlung Goetz. Each child designs and decorates their own Advent candle in the studio.
It suits kids who like making things with their hands and want something homemade for the Advent season.
Around 300 Krampus and Perchten in shaggy fur and hand-carved wooden masks rattle, clang and roar through the Old Town's Christmas market streets. The groups come from across the Alps, keeping a 500-year-old tradition alive.
The figures play with the crowd, snatch a hat and hand it back, and stop for selfies. Fun for kids who like a good scare; not for a child afraid of masks.
Once a year, the women who run the stalls at Munich's Viktualienmarkt trade their aprons for costumes and dance on a stage by the maypole. Each costume shows a stall, so kids can spot the baker, the butcher or the flower seller.
The Narrhalla guards and the Fasching prince and princess warm up the crowd first. It's a big outdoor crowd, so smaller kids see best from a parent's shoulders.
The Wiesn is Munich's giant folk festival on the Theresienwiese: beer tents, yes, but also a full fairground. Kids ride the Ferris wheel, chair swings, the Toboggan's conveyor belt and wooden slide, and the Teufelsrad spinning disc.
The Oide Wiesn at the south end is calmer, with historic carousels, a marionette theater and high-wheel bikes. Weekday daytime suits families best; evenings and weekends get packed.
Koch Dich Glücklich is a cooking school and event kitchen in the Glockenbach area. Its kids' program includes a kids' cooking class themed around one country or topic per session, parent-and-child classes, teen classes, and a four-day holiday cooking program where kids make their own recipe book.
It also hosts cooking birthday parties, where each child takes home an apron and a chef's hat to paint.
A 21-hectare botanical garden, opened in 1914, beside Nymphenburg Palace park. Indoors, a chain of greenhouses runs from a tall palm house to a giant cactus hall, a tree fern house on lava rock, an orchid house and the Victoria house with its huge water lilies.
Outside, kids can follow paths through an alpine rock garden with over 2,000 species, an arboretum and pond areas.
Munich's central square, with the Neo-Gothic New Town Hall to the north and the Old Town Hall to the east. In the town hall tower, the Glockenspiel's 43 bells ring while figures joust in a knights' tournament and turn in the coopers' dance. The Mariensäule column stands in the middle, and the Fish Fountain by the town hall is the classic meeting point.
Four museums share one building: modern art, works on paper, architecture and design, all arranged around a tall glass rotunda. One visit moves from paintings to everyday design objects and architecture.
Every Sunday afternoon the PIN.k workshop room runs a drop-in program for ages 5 to 12, with gallery walks and hands-on making. On other days, free activity cards from the info desk guide a self-led tour for kids.
The Residenz was the palace of Bavaria's Wittelsbach dukes, electors and kings, and has been a museum since 1920. Most rooms still hold their original furniture, tapestries and paintings, so kids walk through gilded halls as they were used. The Antiquarium, the oldest surviving room, is a long painted vault lined with marble busts. The separate Treasury shows the dynasty's treasures, and the Court Garden outside is free.
The MVG Museum is the collection of Munich's public transport operator, set in a listed former bus workshop of over 5,000 square meters. About 25 historic trams, buses and works vehicles from different eras stand side by side, each with a board on its maker, specs and working life.
Themed areas cover city history, how transport developed, uniforms, signage and advertising, and the control center.
A museum of world cultures on Maximilianstraße, with objects from every continent. Permanent galleries cover Oceania's carved masks and boards, a Buddha hall, Myanmar's pagodas and spirit figures, Japan through a painter's travel souvenirs, Sub-Saharan Africa, Southwest Asia and North Africa, and Central and South America.
A free activity booklet from the ticket desk sends kids around every permanent gallery, and creative workshops turn what they saw into art.
The Deutsches Museum's aviation branch sits in hangars on the edge of the Schleißheim airfield, whose oldest buildings date from the early days of flight. More than 70 aircraft fill the halls, from a Lilienthal glider to the Eurofighter, plus helicopters, flying boats and the huge Europa rocket.
It suits plane-mad kids more than toddlers.
Three listed 1908 exhibition halls on the Theresienhöhe hold 275 vehicles, from trams and VW Beetles to steam locomotives and the Benz Patent-Motorwagen. Hall I covers city traffic and crash safety; Hall II is a railway platform lined with locomotives and carriages; Hall III has racing cars, bikes and skates.
The children's area in Hall III lets kids build, paint, slide and play with toy cars.
A 750-square-meter open-air ice rink on Karlsplatz, the square locals call Stachus, at the edge of Munich's old town. Kids skate under Christmas lights to music, with themed evenings through the week.
Skates and helmets rent on site, so nobody needs their own gear. Between laps, the Schmankerl-Hütte and Glühwein-Alm huts serve hot food and drinks. It works for first-timers and confident skaters alike.
LUMAGICA turns the Showpalast grounds in Fröttmaning into a 1.5 km loop of glowing sculptures and light installations. This year's theme follows Phileas Fogg and Passepartout from Around the World in 80 Days, through light worlds for Asia, the Americas and Europe.
Kids can set off some of the installations themselves, pose at photo spots and catch a light and laser show along the way.
Once a year the Olympia-Schwimmhalle turns into one big try-it day for water sports. Kids can swim like mermaids, paddle a kayak, try diving, jump from the diving boards or balance on a slackline strung over the water.
It suits families with a mix of ages: there is water play for the smallest, while confident swimmers can sample sports a normal pool visit never offers.
Munich's oldest Christmas market fills Marienplatz and nearby streets with stalls of ornaments, gingerbread hearts and roasted almonds, under a giant tree outside the New Town Hall. Kids can hear brass bands and choirs on the town hall balcony, browse a huge nativity-figure market by St. Peter's, and catch the Krampus run if they like a scare. About three million people visit each season, so expect crowds.
Munich's official Fasching parade, the Faschingszug, is led by the Damische Ritter, a local carnival club. More than 50 groups wind through the Altstadt: brass bands, decorated floats, dance troupes, carnival societies and the city's Fasching prince and princess.
Thousands line the old-town streets to watch, many in costume, so kids get to see the floats up close from inside a crowd in fancy dress.
Twice a year, Leopoldstraße in Schwabing closes to cars and becomes one long festival street between the Siegestor and Münchner Freiheit. Stages along the way run from swing and salsa to Bavarian dialect bands, cabaret and electronic music, with art, dance taster classes and football courts in between.
The Corso Leopoldino kids' area has easel painting, crafts and movement games, a good base while the grown-ups browse.
Thousands of people in dirndls and lederhosen fill the beer garden around the Chinese Tower in the Englischer Garten and dance Bavarian folk dances at sunrise. A dance master calls and demonstrates every step from the stage, so beginners and kids join in.
The ball revives a tradition of the city's cooks and maids, who danced here before work in the 1880s. It suits early-rising families who like music and a crowd.
Maximiliansanlagen is about 2 km of wooded parkland on the high east bank of the Isar. Paths run under old trees past the Friedensengel column and the Maximilianeum, with views across to the old town and down to the river's weirs.
After a snowfall, the short slopes near the Maximilianeum are one of the most central sledding spots in town, with steep runs and gentle ones for small kids.
Aubinger Lohe is a forest recreation area on the western edge of the city, crossed by woodland paths for walking and cycling. Its main hill rises about 25 meters above the surrounding fields and becomes a sledding run when snow falls, with plenty of smaller slopes where young kids can try their first runs.
In summer, families come for the two Böhmerweiher ponds and the playgrounds.
A 750-square-meter open-air ice rink set up each Advent on Karlsplatz, the square locals call Stachus, under festive lights in the middle of the old town. Kids skate on a big open sheet of ice, with music playing on most days.
Sunday daytime sessions are family days with children's entertainment and face painting. Food and hot drinks come from the Schmankerl-Hütte and Glühwein-Alm huts beside the rink.
Three underground ice rinks sit beneath the SAP Garden, the Olympiapark arena where Red Bull Munich plays hockey, so public skating runs all year. Rental skates come in hockey and figure styles from EU size 25.
From October to April, Thursday to Saturday evenings bring an ice disco, and a monthly inclusive session lends skating aids and ice gliders. Jumps and figure-skating moves are not allowed in public sessions.
Schauburg is the city's public theater for young audiences, based on Elisabethplatz. Its ensemble stages plays and dance pieces for every stage of childhood, from a show for crawling babies to dramas for teens.
Shows are in German, some marked as plain language (Einfache Sprache). The LABs are pay-what-you-can workshops where kids and teens make theater themselves.
Westbad is a city-run indoor leisure pool under a large glass dome in Pasing. The fun pool has a current channel, a waterfall and a 60-meter slide, and toddlers get their own splash pool.
Older swimmers can do lengths in the 25-meter pool, and parents can warm up in the two whirlpools. A self-service restaurant inside serves both swimmers and visitors.
Munich's first indoor pool opened in 1901 and still runs in its original Art Nouveau halls. The big hall has a 31-meter pool under a painted, vaulted ceiling; the smaller hall has an 18-meter pool that is quieter and suits easy laps.
There is no paddling pool or learner pool, so it suits kids who already swim. Adults can add the sauna and the Roman-Irish steam bath.
Viktualienmarkt is the Old Town's open-air food market, with more than 100 stalls selling fruit, cheese, bread, honey and flowers around a blue-and-white maypole.
Kids can snack their way through the stalls, spot the six statue fountains of Munich comedians and folk singers, and sit in the central beer garden, where families may bring their own food.
A forest education center run by the Bavarian forestry office in the Grünwald Forest. Its 2.8 km loop trail starts at the main building, passes the wild boar enclosure and has 13 stations, including a barefoot path, sounding logs, a sound labyrinth, a climate arboretum and an adventure playground.
There is also a biodiversity exhibition, an insect house, an ant trail and a yearly program of guided forest walks.
Flaucher is the stretch of the Isar between the Flauchersteg footbridge and the Braunauer railway bridge, where the river splits into shallow side channels around wide gravel banks. Kids wade and splash in alpine water that rarely tops 20°C, even in midsummer.
The banks double as a grilling and meeting spot, so summer weekends get crowded, though quieter corners turn up along the branching channels.
Luitpoldpark spreads 33 hectares of open lawns around a 1911 obelisk and linden grove. North of the Bamberger Haus, a playground holds a winding hedge maze and the Pumuckl fountain.
The 37-meter Luitpoldhügel, a hill built from wartime rubble, is a quick climb with views to the Olympic Tower. In winter its shaded north slope is one of the city's steepest toboggan runs.
Ostpark spreads over 56 hectares around a lake with an island, quieter than the city's other big parks. Kids find Maulwurfshausen adventure playground at the east end, a skate park, table tennis and volleyball, and a barbecue zone by the lake. The Michaeligarten beer garden sits on the shore.
In winter the lake draws ice skaters, the hill becomes a sledding run, and a groomed cross-country ski trail follows the water.
Munich Action Park fills the former Olympic ice training hall at the Olympiapark with about 2,000 square meters of action sports: bouldering walls, a Ninja Warrior obstacle course, a parkour area and a calisthenics zone.
Younger kids get their own Kids' Area with low bouldering and obstacles to try each sport. A bistro sells pretzels, pinsa, cake and drinks, and outside food isn't allowed.
Superfly Munich is an indoor trampoline park of about 4,000m². Beyond the open jumping courts and a foam pit for landing flips, it has Valo attractions, where trampolines meet video games, and Pixel Games, where teams collect points and solve puzzles level by level.
It suits school-age kids and teens who want to burn off energy on a cold or rainy day.
Bavaria's Wittelsbach rulers spent their summers here. The main palace has frescoed state rooms, and the 180-hectare park around it has lakes, swans, squirrels and four small park palaces to peek into.
The Marstallmuseum, in the old riding stables, holds over forty royal coaches and sleighs, including King Ludwig II's gilded state coaches and the Rococo coronation coach of Emperor Karl VII.
The world's largest library of international children's books fills a 15th-century castle beside the Würm river. The children's library lends 20,000 books in 24 languages, from Arabic to Ukrainian, and runs courses and readings for kids and families.
Upstairs, the Michael Ende Museum shows the author's books, drawings and belongings, with Momo, Jim Button and Bastian from The Neverending Story. The James Krüss Museum Tower holds more exhibits.
The FC Bayern Museum fills Level 3 of the Allianz Arena with club history since 1900: original trophies, jerseys, match footage and a Hall of Fame of player legends.
The arena tour takes families from the museum into the stadium itself. Kids can rent their own multimedia guide, Café Gisela serves snacks inside the museum, and the FC Bayern Fan Store is right next door.
The BMW Museum traces over 100 years of BMW cars and motorcycles through themed houses on design, technology, motorsport and the brand, in a bowl-shaped building next to the Olympiapark.
Kids walk past race cars, prototypes and the tiny Isetta bubble car, and at least one Art Car painted by artists such as Andy Warhol or Jeff Koons is always on display.
The public museum of the Bavarian State Collection for Paleontology and Geology fills a glass-roofed hall with big skeletons. At the center stands the Mühldorf prehistoric elephant, surrounded by Plateosaurus (the largest dinosaur found in Bavaria), Allosaurus, Triceratops, the giant flying reptile Pteranodon, a giant deer and a cave bear.
Upstairs, a timeline runs through every era of Earth's history. The museum also shows the Munich Archaeopteryx.
One of the largest museums in Germany, with 20 permanent exhibitions on an island in the Isar. Kids walk among planes and helicopters in Modern Aviation, see how locks and bridges work, and try about 20 hands-on light experiments in Classical Optics.
Younger children head to Kids' Kingdom: a marble run, a fire engine to climb into, a giant guitar to crawl inside and a pedal-powered aircraft.
A stage version of Otfried Preußler's classic about a young witch who wants to do good, though her spells still go wrong and it rains clothespins or white mice. With her hungry raven Abraxas she helps the chestnut seller and rescues Korbinian the ox, while the witch Rumpumpel spies on her before the big test on the Blocksberg. Performed in German by a professional cast in full costume.
Astrid Lindgren's Pippi moves into Villa Villekulla with her monkey, Mr. Nilsson, and her horse, and turns life upside down for Tommy and Annika, the well-behaved kids next door. Police officers, robbers and worried neighbors all try to rein her in, and she outwits every one.
Daniela Kranz, who staged Ronja Räubertochter at the Residenztheater, directs this big-stage version with songs and choreography.
Sarah Mettenleiter, a Munich pianist and singer who has played with the Jazzrausch Bigband, tells the story of her younger self, who meets the Nix, a dachshund-like creature that appears in moments of pure boredom. Soon little Sarah is wrongly suspected in a jewel theft and needs the Nix and her classmates to clear her name. A five-piece jazz band plays the score while illustrations tell the story alongside.
Percussionist Samuel Wootton, one of Bergson's resident artists, takes the audience through the world of percussion, from a soft "ting" to a big "boom". Kids don't just listen: they drum, clap and laugh along and become part of the show.
It's Bergson's own production, staged in the Freiraum hall of the Bergson Kunstkraftwerk, a converted power station in Aubing. Good for kids who like noise and hate sitting still.
Wagner's opera, retold for kids. Tannhäuser and his friend Wolfram want to win a singing contest at Wartburg castle, and Elisabeth's heart. Then Tannhäuser goes looking for an apple he dreamed of and is trapped underground by the sorceress Venus, allowed only to sing for her.
Actors from puzzletheater münchen play the story while an 11-piece chamber orchestra, concierto münchen, plays Wagner's music live.
A children's stage version of Mozart's Magic Flute. Prince Tamino, chased by a dragon, sets out to rescue Pamina with Papageno, a funny bird catcher who is not very brave, armed with a magic flute and magic bells.
Actors in full costume tell the story with music and dance, and it leaves kids with a question: was the Queen of the Night telling the truth? A friendly first taste of Mozart for school-age kids.
Dream-Bowl Palace is a big bowling center just outside Munich, with 52 lanes, an 18-hole blacklight minigolf course, 11 pool tables, darts and table soccer. Every lane has bumpers that staff switch on for kids up to 1.37 m tall.
A bistro and lounge serve fries, burgers and nuggets. Weekend evenings turn into Palace Party Night with blacklight and louder music, so families with young kids tend to come earlier.
Boulderwelt München Süd is a bouldering gym in Brunnthal, just south of Munich. Kids under 14 climb in the Kinderwelt, a separate area with kid-sized holds, a hand-painted Alpine scene, a slide and tunnels, or in a mixed area with marked kids' routes beside the adult walls.
Parents can wait in a lounge with coffee. It is not a drop-off: an adult supervises kids the whole time.
Boulderwelt München Ost is a bouldering gym on the upper floors of a building by München Ost station, with 6m walls climbed without ropes.
The 4th floor holds a Kinderwelt just for kids: hand-painted underwater walls with a castle, crawl tunnels and a slide for climbers from about age 2. Kids 6 and up can also use the mixed area, where routes marked with a hand have closer holds.
Dantebad is a city-run outdoor pool that stays heated through the winter, so kids can swim outside in any season. There is a 50-meter lap pool at about 30°C and a warmer leisure pool with bubble loungers, a bubble grotto, a current channel and a water mushroom.
Table tennis, a restaurant and a separate sauna area for adults round it out.
A city-run outdoor pool by the Isar in Giesing, with a 50-meter pool (three lap lanes), a non-swimmer pool and a paddling pool with play features for small kids.
Around them sit a wide slide, a playground, table tennis, an outdoor chess board and a big lawn under old trees.
Naturbad Maria Einsiedel is a natural swimming pool in the Isar meadows, open since 1899. The Isar canal runs almost 400 meters through the grounds, and the water in the 50-meter pool, the non-swimmer area and the large kids' paddling pool is cleaned by microorganisms instead of chlorine. Kids also get a playground, a soccer lawn, table tennis and giant ground chess, with old shade trees over the lawns.
A groundwater-fed swimming lake of nearly 8 hectares, ringed by about 5 hectares of lawn and sandy shoreline in the Dachauer Moos north of Munich. A shallow beach is set aside for small children, with a sand playground near the water rescue station.
Older kids can play beach volleyball on two courts or table tennis by the beer garden. A grill zone allows small family grills.
A groundwater-fed swimming lake dug as a gravel pit in the late 1930s, with about 11 hectares of water ringed by roughly 7 hectares of lawn. A swimming platform floats in the middle, rare for lakes around Munich, and the water reaches about 5 meters deep.
The north shore has a playground, a small soccer field, ping-pong tables and a beer garden, plus a marked barbecue zone.
The Frauenkirche's south tower is one of the cathedral's two onion-domed towers, and the one visitors can climb. Kids walk 86 steps up a narrow spiral staircase, then ride an elevator to the tower room 80 meters up, the highest point in the old town, with windows over the rooftops and the countryside beyond.
The tight stairwell doesn't suit anyone claustrophobic.
Alter Peter is the bell tower of St. Peter's, the oldest parish church in the city, beside Marienplatz. Kids climb 306 steps to a viewing platform over the old town rooftops, and on clear days the view reaches the Alps.
On the way up, windows at the belfry show the eight bells, including one cast for the city's 800th anniversary, and kids can watch them swing when they ring.
Hellabrunn sits on the Isar river meadows and was the world's first geozoo: since 1928 its animals have lived grouped by continent, so kids can walk from the African savanna to the polar world in a few steps. More than 500 species live here, from elephants and tigers to penguins and polar bears. A new jungle world covers Asia, and there's a petting area and playgrounds along the way.
BMW Welt is the carmaker's showroom and delivery center, a sweeping glass building with a twisted double cone at one end. Kids can explore the latest BMW, MINI, Rolls-Royce and BMW Motorrad models up close, and look down on the Premiere, where new owners drive off in their cars.
The BMW Museum, directly opposite, covers more than 100 years of BMW history and runs hands-on workshops for kids.
An outdoor ice rink, 60 meters long, with music playing and floodlights for skating after dark. Kids can do laps, play ice hockey, or join the Münchner Eistanz on the ice.
It opened in 1933 as the first open-air artificial ice rink in southern Germany. In summer the same site becomes the Prinzregentenbad outdoor pool.
A 22-lane bowling center in Giesing, open since 1986 and long known as Isar Bowling. Twelve of the lanes have automatic bumpers for young bowlers, and the cosmic lanes glow under black light. House balls are free and computers keep score, so nobody needs to know the rules.
A billiards and snooker hall sits one floor up, and the center also has darts and a restaurant.
Munich's largest climbing forest has more than 110 elements over 13 courses, strung through 21,000 square meters of woods. Expect wobbly nets, rope bridges and flying foxes up to 11 meters high, with a continuous safety line that can't come unclipped. The smallest climbers get a low course 1 to 2 meters off the ground.
On the ground: a playground, a forest nature trail and the Fater Alm hut restaurant.
A large climbing center run by the German Alpine Club (DAV), with roped walls up to 15 m high inside and out, plus a bouldering hall. Kids get their own routes and boulders, marked with a monkey sign and set with small holds, and a ten-problem kids' course.
Upstairs, an enclosed play area has climbing walls and a slide. Outside there's a playground with a sandbox and a big trampoline.
A German Alpine Club (DAV) climbing center with 5,100 sqm of rope walls (about 500 routes), a separate bouldering hall, and outdoor walls under a wide roof overhang that keeps them climbable in rain.
Kids' routes and boulders carry a small monkey sign and use holds sized for small hands. Downstairs, a play area has a pirate ship, a knights' castle and thick crash mats.
Prinzregentenbad is a public outdoor pool with a 25 m lap pool, a leisure pool with water features, 1 m and 3 m diving boards and a 50 m water slide. Younger kids get a paddling pool with a water play area.
Families spread out on a big lawn under old trees, and there are beach volleyball courts, a restaurant and a kiosk with a beer garden.
Langwieder See is an 18-hectare swimming lake, up to 8 meters deep, and the largest of the three Langwieder lakes alongside Lußsee and Birkensee. Wide lawns around the shore leave room for picnics and ball games, and a restaurant with a beer garden sits by the water.
Barbecues are allowed only in the signed grill zones. Divers have a marked area at the north end, away from the swimming lawns.
Feringasee is a 32-hectare former gravel-pit lake, up to 7 meters deep, ringed by 21 hectares of lawns. In season the south third is the buoyed swimming zone, with a step-free entry on the south shore.
Kids can walk or bike the 2 km loop path, try the beach volleyball court and fitness trail, or explore the wetland on the north shore. A restaurant with beer garden is open year-round.
Built for the 1972 Olympics, the park wraps around a lake and the 60-meter Olympic Hill, a grassy mound piled from wartime rubble with views over the city to the Alps. Kids climb the easy paths to the summit and run the open lawns, and there is boat hire on the Olympic Lake. SEA LIFE, minigolf and the Munich Action Park's climbing kids area sit inside the grounds.
Part of Germany's nationwide reading day. Sabine Bohlmann, Charlotte Habersack and Jörg Hilbert each read from their best-known children's books on the theater stage, including Ritter Rost and Frau Honig. A reading barber, Danny Beuerbach, joins in the afternoon, and the day ends with the authors talking about how they write and where ideas come from.
René Frotscher is an award-winning comedy magician, and his family show mixes sleight of hand with clowning, mime, slapstick and a lot of wordplay. Coins appear out of thin air, scarves and cards vanish, and kids from the audience help out with the tricks. He keeps adding new tricks to the program, so families who have seen him before still get fresh material.
A kids' version of Mozart's The Magic Flute, told through Papageno, the cheerful bird catcher. Prince Tamino sends him to find Princess Pamina, and a small flute helps him past every danger on the way. Singers share the stage with puppets from münchner puzzletheater while the chamber orchestra concierto münchen plays the music live. A good first opera, with the famous tunes and a story kids can follow.
A string quartet and a narrator bring Wagner's Ring of the Nibelung down to kid size. The Praetorius Quartett plays themes from the opera cycle while Katja Jung tells the story of the dwarfs, giants, humans and gods fighting over a magic gold ring.
It takes place in the Parkettgarderobe, a foyer inside Munich's opera house, not the main hall. A first taste of classical music and opera storytelling.
Actor Stefan Wilkening reads Astrid Lindgren's Christmas stories, with Maria Reiter on accordion. Pippi Longstocking invites the town's kids to plunder her Christmas tree, Michel (Emil in English) brings a feast to the poorhouse, and the Bullerbü children bake cookies as presents draw near. Wilkening plays every voice and face. It's in German, so it suits kids who follow spoken German or already know the books.
Timmy, a boy with a flute, goes to Vienna to learn what Mozart's Turkish March is about and meets the storyteller Scheherazade. Her storybook pulls them both into the Arabian Nights: a busy market, a contest of musicians, a conjurer, Sindbad the sailor and a grim palace guard. A chamber ensemble plays Mozart, Rimsky-Korsakov and Tchaikovsky, while an acrobat and actress plays out the story with flying carpets and swirling veils.
Magician Arcato takes the audience on a trip to a Christmas magic land. Kids help Santa get ready for Christmas, hunt for his missing reindeer and watch one trick after another.
The children in the seats are part of the act: some of the spells only work when they help. It suits kids who like to shout out answers and join in, and who can follow a show in German.
Flint was the Stone Age toolmaker's favorite material, and this workshop teaches the basics of shaping it. Kids work with real flint to make carving knives and arrowheads, guided by Dr. Robert Graf. It is part of the museum's program for the Stonehenge exhibition.
A magician vanishes just before his own show. A stranger in a hoodie and his companion LUMO ask the kids to help find him, through illusions, magic tricks and audience volunteers. The kids drive the story, and it pays off at the end.
Balduin Ubinga, a panicked theater director, has been told a rich American wants a jazz concert with scat singing, and nobody knows what scat is. Kids help him find out, alongside a live band of trumpet, piano, drums and double bass.
The show runs from sad blues to wild boogie-woogie, with a little history of African American music along the way, and plenty of clapping, dancing and singing along.
One night Herr Sumsemann, a maybug, taps on Peterchen and Anneliese's window, and the three fly past the Night Fairy and the Star Meadow to the moon to win back his lost sixth leg. Composer Alexander Krampe set Gerdt von Bassewitz's classic German story to music, played by the Bergson Artists on piano, violin, viola and cello, with Maximilian Maier singing and narrating. It suits kids happy to sit and listen.
A shortened family version of Mozart's The Magic Flute, keeping the famous music but not the full-length run. Three singers, a narrator and a one-person keyboard "orchestra" tell the story of Prince Tamino, Papageno the bird-catcher and the Queen of the Night, pitched at grown-ups as much as kids. It's performed in German, and works best for kids who already enjoy music and a good story.
Bummelkasten is a Berlin one-man band who builds songs almost entirely with his mouth: a cappella vocals, beatbox and live loop-station layers, often performed from an armchair. The songs star odd characters, like Princess Susi, who grills pony sausage and drives a monster truck to the bakery, and Max, the toilet-paper thief who rides escalators. The lyrics are sharp and funny enough that parents laugh along too.
The award-winning percussion duo Double Drums performs a family concert featuring world percussion instruments, saws, power drills, and cardboard boxes transformed into musical instruments. The musicians interact with the audience through rhythmic storytelling: stampeding wildebeest, ocean waves, and desert storms rendered as "ear cinema." The program includes humor, audience participation, and explanations of diverse percussion traditions.
A Christmas ballet where professional dancers share the stage with students from German ballet schools. On Christmas Eve, Clara meets the brave Nutcracker, who saves her from the Mouse King, and the two set off into a night where dreams and secret wishes come true.
It suits families with kids who dance or love fairy tales, and grown-ups who want a classical Nutcracker.
A family ice show built on the songs from both Frozen films, sung live by musical soloists while ice dancers and acrobats fill the ice. Elsa, Anna, Olaf, Kristoff and Sven are all there, and a giant LED screen turns the stage to ice and blue crystals when Elsa sings "Let It Go".
It suits kids who already know the films and want to see the characters in person.
A children's theater where professional actors stage fairy tales and classic children's books: Grimm, Hauff and Andersen alongside Astrid Lindgren, Otfried Preußler, Janosch and Michael Ende. Sets and costumes are elaborate, and the repertoire runs to at least 16 plays. Plays are performed in German.
The hall sits in a listed 1916 former cinema with Jugendstil interiors, and the raised stage gives a clear view from almost every seat.
The Münchner Marionettentheater carries on a string-puppet tradition dating to 1858, in a small theater by architect Theodor Fischer that opened near Sendlinger Tor in 1900. Afternoon shows are the kids' program: fairy tales, children's classics and Christmas plays told with marionettes. Evening shows, including opera, are for teens and adults. All 14 rows have a clear view of the stage.
A 1,150 m² indoor laser tag arena in Garching, just north of Munich, with obstacles, raised platforms, and light and sound effects. Up to 50 players wear Laserforce Gen8 vests, and power-ups change how each round plays.
Staff give a short briefing before play, so first-timers can join in. A lounge serves pizza, snacks and drinks between rounds.
Somewhere around eight, kids start asking for the real thing: a proper concert, a play with a plot, a show where they get pulled on stage. This list gathers the upcoming plays, concerts, exhibitions and outings that welcome kids from eight to twelve, sorted so the ones built around that age come first. Check each listing's age range, since some also suit younger siblings.
A night watchman leads kids along Munich's old city wall on his evening rounds, telling them how the city lived in the Middle Ages. Kids help him watch for shady characters and lock the city gates, or just listen if they prefer. The stories get a little spooky but are chosen for children, and it's less gory than the adult tour. Stay after for a photo with him.
A hands-on coding workshop at the Westend public library, part of its ENTER! digital learning series. Kids work with LEGO SPIKE, a kit that combines building, engineering and programming, and code what they build.
It is a playful first look at how computers "think", with lots of trying things out and tinkering. It suits curious kids who are happy following spoken instructions in German.
Magic Maxl is a magician so young he still goes to school, and not Hogwarts: an ordinary school where magic is strictly forbidden. He does it anyway, and kids see what he does with bad essays and how he solves a math problem.
It is comedy magic built around school life. The show is all in German, so it suits kids who follow spoken German, and primary-school kids most.
A hands-on chocolate workshop at Museum Mensch und Natur, in Schloss Nymphenburg. Kids find out where cocoa comes from, who harvests it and how a cocoa bean turns into a bar of chocolate.
It suits curious kids who like making things, with a grown-up alongside.
Münchner Marionettentheater stages Dickens' A Christmas Carol with hand puppets and live voices. Marley's ghost warns Scrooge, then three spirits show him his past, a family Christmas happening now, and a lonely future. Some moments are sad or spooky, including a sick child and Scrooge's own death, and the ending turns warm. Scrooge wakes up changed.
An open children's farm run by a nonprofit, where kids drop in without signing up and pitch in with the goats, chickens, runner ducks, rabbits, guinea pigs and bees.
The 5,000 m² grounds also hold playgrounds, a big pirate ship, a fire pit, a garden, and pottery, forge, wood and bike workshops. Kids don't feed the animals or enter the pens alone; staff help them get to know one.
A city farm and adventure playground on about 15,000 m², more than two soccer fields, with ponies, goats, sheep, pigs, rabbits and cats. Kids roam the grounds on their own: a treehouse, a play hill, fire pits, a woodworking shop, a garden and a pond for chilling out.
Staff run hands-on projects and seasonal parties, and regulars can sign up to help with stable and animal care.
Abenteuerspielplatz Neuhausen is an open-air yard where school kids handle hammers, nails and real tools, play with water and gather at the fire pit. Wild animals live on the grounds, signs show where to spot them, and a beekeeper looks after the hives by the workshop. Big play structures fill the rest.
The Kreisjugendring München-Stadt runs it as part of Oase Neuhausen.
Students from the Munich Music Seminar and their guests perform Christmas melodies and classical pieces from various eras. The program includes a gift-giving ceremony as part of this musical St. Nicholas celebration.
Conductor Thomas Gropper tells the Christmas story through Bach's Christmas Oratorio, stopping between excerpts to explain what kids are hearing: why the angels sound heavenly, why the shepherds go from amazed to excited, and what all the instruments in the orchestra are.
The Arcis-Vocalisten choir sings with the baroque orchestra L'Arpa festante and soloists. It suits curious school-age kids more than toddlers who need to move.
A musical fantasy story: Timmy and his friend Philipp travel across Europe by balloon, stopping in places like England, France and Italy to meet the people and hear their music.
The chamber ensemble of the Freies Landestheater Bayern plays melodies by Handel, Debussy, Vivaldi, Rossini and Charpentier. It suits school-age kids who are curious about instruments and other countries.
Dennis & Jesko Band are the trio behind the football songs on WUMMS, an online channel from NDR and Radio Bremen. Their concerts are a party: kids jump and sing at the front while surprisingly word-perfect parents stand further back.
Expect their big hit "Rambo Ramos" plus songs about Lewandowski, Mbappé, FC Bayern and Antonio Rüdiger. It suits football-mad kids who already know the songs.
CineKindl is the children's section of Filmfest München, Munich's big summer film festival. It shows new feature, animated, documentary and short films from Germany and around the world, with a jury and awards.
After each screening there is a Q&A, often with the filmmakers in the room, so kids can ask whatever the film made them wonder. It suits kids who follow German, since foreign films are dubbed live.
A small pottery workshop near the Englischer Garten, run by ceramicist Désirée Oberländer for about 40 years. Kids build with clay in groups of up to 10, with no set models: they shape their own pieces and group projects, then glaze and paint them themselves after firing.
Older kids can learn the electric potter's wheel, and the studio also hosts weekend theme workshops and birthday parties.
Maulwurfshausen is a staffed adventure playground in Neuperlach, laid out as a play town run by kids. They rent and build wooden huts, take on jobs, cook at a covered fire pit with an outdoor kitchen, and play on a football lawn and bird's-nest swing. A water slide opens on hot summer days, and a play house with table football, ping pong and a workshop covers rainy afternoons.
ABIX is a staffed adventure playground run by the Kreisjugendring München-Stadt. Kids build huts with hammers, saws and scrap timber, earning ABIX-Taler by raking leaves or pulling old nails to buy boards and paint. There's a rope swing over a pond, campfires and a free organic lunch. On rainy days the play house opens, with table football, ping pong and a padded romping room.
A family session in Robotic Worlds, the robot exhibition at Die Neue Sammlung, Munich's design museum. Kids and parents watch odd machines roll past on a conveyor belt, some shaped like dogs, sea creatures or cartoon characters, and talk about what each one can do and why it was built.
Then it turns hands-on: each kid draws a robot of their own, and gets to program a few real ones.
Klang Spiel Platz is a walk-in sound installation at the Schauburg, the city-run children's theater. Strings, wind and percussion instruments share the room with wood, metal, plastic and everyday objects, and kids get to bow, strike and blow all of it. Musicians and music teachers from the theater lead the family workshop and help kids find their own sounds. It suits curious kids who want to touch everything.
A new science-fiction adventure written and built by the Münchner Marionettentheater's own team. Professor Korbinian Fox and his assistant Rakete are finishing a time machine that still lacks one part. While they're out of the workshop, his niece Fania plays with it, the machine starts, and she vanishes. The chase through time is told with marionettes, puppets and recorded voices. It suits kids who can follow a longer story.
Polarwelten is an indoor exhibition about the Arctic and Antarctic. Kids meet polar bears, penguins and whales through pictures and interactive stations.
The main draw is a 360° room with a show of about 25 minutes, where glaciers, icebergs, underwater scenes and northern lights surround you. It suits curious kids who like animals.
A hands-on exhibition about where food comes from and what it does inside us. Kids milk a cow, turn milk into butter, grind grain into flour and play supermarket with a recipe in hand. A giant nose and an oversized tongue explain smell and taste, and a digestion station follows a bite through the body.
Artist Karin Traxler opens her print lab ahead of Christmas. You and your kid design postcards with winter motifs, print them yourselves and take the finished cards home.
It suits a kid who likes making things with their hands, and a family that would rather send its own cards than buy them.
Tollwood is Munich's alternative Christmas market, set up in big tents and open-air lanes on the Theresienwiese. Around 200 stalls sell crafts, clothing and gifts, much of it fair trade, and more than 50 stands cook certified organic food from many countries.
Walk-acts roam the grounds, a performance stage runs shows, and there is a kids' program. It suits families who want shows and food alongside the shopping.
A family horse show built around a fairy tale. Robert, a boy who has lost his imagination, travels through a winter wonderland to win it back, with fairies, wizards and a few villains along the way. Ponies, Lusitanos and liberty horses share the stage with trick riders, fire effects, stunts and comic actors. It suits horse fans, and kids who simply like a big, bright show.
A medieval festival on the grounds of Schloss Kaltenberg, a Bavarian castle west of Munich. Jugglers and musicians play on five stages, and a craft market, camps and food stands fill the site. The centerpiece is a staged jousting show in the arena, with horse stunts, sword fights and fire effects. On Family Sundays, kids then take the arena themselves in a children's tournament and are knighted at the end.
The Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz stages opera, operetta, musicals and ballet. Its family performances are shows kids can follow, such as Hänsel und Gretel, The Magic Flute and the ballet Aschenbrödel (Cinderella).
The Junges Gärtnerplatztheater team runs workshops where kids get to know a show's characters and plot through singing and play, plus morning concerts such as The Carnival of the Animals with Loriot's narration.
The Krone-Bau is the permanent home of Circus Krone, which tours Germany in summer and comes back here for its winter season. Shows fill the ring under a 3,000-seat roof, mixing classic circus (acrobats, clowns, animal acts) with modern routines.
A life-size statue of the clown Charlie Rivel stands at the entrance. Outside circus season, the building hosts concerts and other productions.
A 1,000 m² blacklight minigolf course where kids putt through glowing themed worlds, from jungle and dinosaurs to outer space and underwater scenes, wearing 3D glasses that make the neon pop.
A separate arcade zone has pinball and high-score machines, and TEAM-UP! runs game-show challenges in themed rooms for groups. It sits beside the Forum Schwanthalerhöhe mall, a short walk from Theresienwiese.
A 3,400-square-meter trampoline hall with 13 attractions. Next to the big FreeJUMP trampoline floor sit Ninja Warrior-style courses (the NinjaBridge and the points-based NinjaPod Arena), a soccer arena, and SurvivalJUMP, where jumpers try to outlast a spinning bar.
It suits kids who want to burn off energy and try a challenge. Parents can jump too, or wait in the café area.
Bavaria Filmstadt is the visitor side of a working film studio on Munich's southern edge. A guide walks groups through original sets and props: the U-boat model from "Das Boot", the classroom from "Fack ju Göhte" and the set from "Jim Knopf". Kids can act short scenes in front of a camera, then ride a 3D motion-seat cinema. An outdoor play tower by the entrance fills the wait.
The Volkssternwarte is a public observatory run by an astronomy society, with a solar-system exhibition, a Zeiss planetarium dome, and a rooftop platform nearly 30 meters up with five telescope domes.
Kids' planetarium shows tell space stories under a projected night sky. The children's tour visits all three stations and ends at the big telescopes, with views to the Alps on clear days.
A small natural history museum inside a former church on Neuhauser Straße, on three floors. The Forest Path walks through big wildlife dioramas, from riverbanks and meadows to Alpine peaks, and a chip card from the ticket desk unlocks screens, games and a buzzer quiz at the exit. On the fishing floor, kids walk on a projected water floor, meet talking fish and watch live fish in a recreated river.
The Munich Toy Museum fills four floors of the Old Town Hall tower on Marienplatz with the private collection of the Ivan Steiger family, spanning four centuries of play. Kids can look at model railways, steam engines, tin toys, teddy bears, dolls and dollhouses, wooden toys, Barbies and a wall of robots. The small tower rooms make it a short visit, and an audio guide can be downloaded in advance.
A hands-on museum built around one big interactive exhibition at a time, with stations, objects and workshop corners to touch, try and explore. The current show, "Iss was?!", is about food and the senses: kids milk a model cow, grind grain into flour, shop in a play supermarket and explore an oversized nose and tongue. Exhibition guides are on hand to help. A visit takes about 90 minutes.
A natural history museum in the north wing of Nymphenburg Palace. The heart of it is a quiz hall where kids press a button to answer questions about animals, and doors pop open or model animals sprint off. Pumuckl audio plays by cases of local wildlife.
Elsewhere: glittering minerals, the history of life, a hall on the brain, and Bruno, the brown bear who roamed Bavaria in 2006.
LUMAGICA is an outdoor light park, a walking loop of about 1.5 km through light installations after dark. This season's theme is Around the World in 80 Days.
It suits kids who are happy to walk a while on a cold winter evening. Younger kids who tire quickly may need a carrier or a ride on your shoulders for part of the loop.
An Advent market set up as a medieval Munich market scene, with detailed stalls, crafts and market food. Much of it ties back to the city's own history, such as the monk on its first city seal who later turned into the Münchner Kindl.
It suits kids who like knights, castles and old stories, and grown-ups after a more atmospheric Christmas market than the usual.
Candle Art is an Advent workshop for kids and teens at Sammlung Goetz. Each child designs and decorates their own Advent candle in the studio.
It suits kids who like making things with their hands and want something homemade for the Advent season.
Around 300 Krampus and Perchten in shaggy fur and hand-carved wooden masks rattle, clang and roar through the Old Town's Christmas market streets. The groups come from across the Alps, keeping a 500-year-old tradition alive.
The figures play with the crowd, snatch a hat and hand it back, and stop for selfies. Fun for kids who like a good scare; not for a child afraid of masks.
Once a year, the women who run the stalls at Munich's Viktualienmarkt trade their aprons for costumes and dance on a stage by the maypole. Each costume shows a stall, so kids can spot the baker, the butcher or the flower seller.
The Narrhalla guards and the Fasching prince and princess warm up the crowd first. It's a big outdoor crowd, so smaller kids see best from a parent's shoulders.
The Wiesn is Munich's giant folk festival on the Theresienwiese: beer tents, yes, but also a full fairground. Kids ride the Ferris wheel, chair swings, the Toboggan's conveyor belt and wooden slide, and the Teufelsrad spinning disc.
The Oide Wiesn at the south end is calmer, with historic carousels, a marionette theater and high-wheel bikes. Weekday daytime suits families best; evenings and weekends get packed.
Koch Dich Glücklich is a cooking school and event kitchen in the Glockenbach area. Its kids' program includes a kids' cooking class themed around one country or topic per session, parent-and-child classes, teen classes, and a four-day holiday cooking program where kids make their own recipe book.
It also hosts cooking birthday parties, where each child takes home an apron and a chef's hat to paint.
A 21-hectare botanical garden, opened in 1914, beside Nymphenburg Palace park. Indoors, a chain of greenhouses runs from a tall palm house to a giant cactus hall, a tree fern house on lava rock, an orchid house and the Victoria house with its huge water lilies.
Outside, kids can follow paths through an alpine rock garden with over 2,000 species, an arboretum and pond areas.
Munich's central square, with the Neo-Gothic New Town Hall to the north and the Old Town Hall to the east. In the town hall tower, the Glockenspiel's 43 bells ring while figures joust in a knights' tournament and turn in the coopers' dance. The Mariensäule column stands in the middle, and the Fish Fountain by the town hall is the classic meeting point.
Four museums share one building: modern art, works on paper, architecture and design, all arranged around a tall glass rotunda. One visit moves from paintings to everyday design objects and architecture.
Every Sunday afternoon the PIN.k workshop room runs a drop-in program for ages 5 to 12, with gallery walks and hands-on making. On other days, free activity cards from the info desk guide a self-led tour for kids.
The Residenz was the palace of Bavaria's Wittelsbach dukes, electors and kings, and has been a museum since 1920. Most rooms still hold their original furniture, tapestries and paintings, so kids walk through gilded halls as they were used. The Antiquarium, the oldest surviving room, is a long painted vault lined with marble busts. The separate Treasury shows the dynasty's treasures, and the Court Garden outside is free.
The MVG Museum is the collection of Munich's public transport operator, set in a listed former bus workshop of over 5,000 square meters. About 25 historic trams, buses and works vehicles from different eras stand side by side, each with a board on its maker, specs and working life.
Themed areas cover city history, how transport developed, uniforms, signage and advertising, and the control center.
A museum of world cultures on Maximilianstraße, with objects from every continent. Permanent galleries cover Oceania's carved masks and boards, a Buddha hall, Myanmar's pagodas and spirit figures, Japan through a painter's travel souvenirs, Sub-Saharan Africa, Southwest Asia and North Africa, and Central and South America.
A free activity booklet from the ticket desk sends kids around every permanent gallery, and creative workshops turn what they saw into art.
The Deutsches Museum's aviation branch sits in hangars on the edge of the Schleißheim airfield, whose oldest buildings date from the early days of flight. More than 70 aircraft fill the halls, from a Lilienthal glider to the Eurofighter, plus helicopters, flying boats and the huge Europa rocket.
It suits plane-mad kids more than toddlers.
Three listed 1908 exhibition halls on the Theresienhöhe hold 275 vehicles, from trams and VW Beetles to steam locomotives and the Benz Patent-Motorwagen. Hall I covers city traffic and crash safety; Hall II is a railway platform lined with locomotives and carriages; Hall III has racing cars, bikes and skates.
The children's area in Hall III lets kids build, paint, slide and play with toy cars.
A 750-square-meter open-air ice rink on Karlsplatz, the square locals call Stachus, at the edge of Munich's old town. Kids skate under Christmas lights to music, with themed evenings through the week.
Skates and helmets rent on site, so nobody needs their own gear. Between laps, the Schmankerl-Hütte and Glühwein-Alm huts serve hot food and drinks. It works for first-timers and confident skaters alike.
LUMAGICA turns the Showpalast grounds in Fröttmaning into a 1.5 km loop of glowing sculptures and light installations. This year's theme follows Phileas Fogg and Passepartout from Around the World in 80 Days, through light worlds for Asia, the Americas and Europe.
Kids can set off some of the installations themselves, pose at photo spots and catch a light and laser show along the way.
Once a year the Olympia-Schwimmhalle turns into one big try-it day for water sports. Kids can swim like mermaids, paddle a kayak, try diving, jump from the diving boards or balance on a slackline strung over the water.
It suits families with a mix of ages: there is water play for the smallest, while confident swimmers can sample sports a normal pool visit never offers.
Munich's oldest Christmas market fills Marienplatz and nearby streets with stalls of ornaments, gingerbread hearts and roasted almonds, under a giant tree outside the New Town Hall. Kids can hear brass bands and choirs on the town hall balcony, browse a huge nativity-figure market by St. Peter's, and catch the Krampus run if they like a scare. About three million people visit each season, so expect crowds.
Munich's official Fasching parade, the Faschingszug, is led by the Damische Ritter, a local carnival club. More than 50 groups wind through the Altstadt: brass bands, decorated floats, dance troupes, carnival societies and the city's Fasching prince and princess.
Thousands line the old-town streets to watch, many in costume, so kids get to see the floats up close from inside a crowd in fancy dress.
Twice a year, Leopoldstraße in Schwabing closes to cars and becomes one long festival street between the Siegestor and Münchner Freiheit. Stages along the way run from swing and salsa to Bavarian dialect bands, cabaret and electronic music, with art, dance taster classes and football courts in between.
The Corso Leopoldino kids' area has easel painting, crafts and movement games, a good base while the grown-ups browse.
Thousands of people in dirndls and lederhosen fill the beer garden around the Chinese Tower in the Englischer Garten and dance Bavarian folk dances at sunrise. A dance master calls and demonstrates every step from the stage, so beginners and kids join in.
The ball revives a tradition of the city's cooks and maids, who danced here before work in the 1880s. It suits early-rising families who like music and a crowd.
Maximiliansanlagen is about 2 km of wooded parkland on the high east bank of the Isar. Paths run under old trees past the Friedensengel column and the Maximilianeum, with views across to the old town and down to the river's weirs.
After a snowfall, the short slopes near the Maximilianeum are one of the most central sledding spots in town, with steep runs and gentle ones for small kids.
Aubinger Lohe is a forest recreation area on the western edge of the city, crossed by woodland paths for walking and cycling. Its main hill rises about 25 meters above the surrounding fields and becomes a sledding run when snow falls, with plenty of smaller slopes where young kids can try their first runs.
In summer, families come for the two Böhmerweiher ponds and the playgrounds.
A 750-square-meter open-air ice rink set up each Advent on Karlsplatz, the square locals call Stachus, under festive lights in the middle of the old town. Kids skate on a big open sheet of ice, with music playing on most days.
Sunday daytime sessions are family days with children's entertainment and face painting. Food and hot drinks come from the Schmankerl-Hütte and Glühwein-Alm huts beside the rink.
Three underground ice rinks sit beneath the SAP Garden, the Olympiapark arena where Red Bull Munich plays hockey, so public skating runs all year. Rental skates come in hockey and figure styles from EU size 25.
From October to April, Thursday to Saturday evenings bring an ice disco, and a monthly inclusive session lends skating aids and ice gliders. Jumps and figure-skating moves are not allowed in public sessions.
Schauburg is the city's public theater for young audiences, based on Elisabethplatz. Its ensemble stages plays and dance pieces for every stage of childhood, from a show for crawling babies to dramas for teens.
Shows are in German, some marked as plain language (Einfache Sprache). The LABs are pay-what-you-can workshops where kids and teens make theater themselves.
Westbad is a city-run indoor leisure pool under a large glass dome in Pasing. The fun pool has a current channel, a waterfall and a 60-meter slide, and toddlers get their own splash pool.
Older swimmers can do lengths in the 25-meter pool, and parents can warm up in the two whirlpools. A self-service restaurant inside serves both swimmers and visitors.
Munich's first indoor pool opened in 1901 and still runs in its original Art Nouveau halls. The big hall has a 31-meter pool under a painted, vaulted ceiling; the smaller hall has an 18-meter pool that is quieter and suits easy laps.
There is no paddling pool or learner pool, so it suits kids who already swim. Adults can add the sauna and the Roman-Irish steam bath.
Viktualienmarkt is the Old Town's open-air food market, with more than 100 stalls selling fruit, cheese, bread, honey and flowers around a blue-and-white maypole.
Kids can snack their way through the stalls, spot the six statue fountains of Munich comedians and folk singers, and sit in the central beer garden, where families may bring their own food.
A forest education center run by the Bavarian forestry office in the Grünwald Forest. Its 2.8 km loop trail starts at the main building, passes the wild boar enclosure and has 13 stations, including a barefoot path, sounding logs, a sound labyrinth, a climate arboretum and an adventure playground.
There is also a biodiversity exhibition, an insect house, an ant trail and a yearly program of guided forest walks.
Flaucher is the stretch of the Isar between the Flauchersteg footbridge and the Braunauer railway bridge, where the river splits into shallow side channels around wide gravel banks. Kids wade and splash in alpine water that rarely tops 20°C, even in midsummer.
The banks double as a grilling and meeting spot, so summer weekends get crowded, though quieter corners turn up along the branching channels.
Luitpoldpark spreads 33 hectares of open lawns around a 1911 obelisk and linden grove. North of the Bamberger Haus, a playground holds a winding hedge maze and the Pumuckl fountain.
The 37-meter Luitpoldhügel, a hill built from wartime rubble, is a quick climb with views to the Olympic Tower. In winter its shaded north slope is one of the city's steepest toboggan runs.
Ostpark spreads over 56 hectares around a lake with an island, quieter than the city's other big parks. Kids find Maulwurfshausen adventure playground at the east end, a skate park, table tennis and volleyball, and a barbecue zone by the lake. The Michaeligarten beer garden sits on the shore.
In winter the lake draws ice skaters, the hill becomes a sledding run, and a groomed cross-country ski trail follows the water.
Munich Action Park fills the former Olympic ice training hall at the Olympiapark with about 2,000 square meters of action sports: bouldering walls, a Ninja Warrior obstacle course, a parkour area and a calisthenics zone.
Younger kids get their own Kids' Area with low bouldering and obstacles to try each sport. A bistro sells pretzels, pinsa, cake and drinks, and outside food isn't allowed.
Superfly Munich is an indoor trampoline park of about 4,000m². Beyond the open jumping courts and a foam pit for landing flips, it has Valo attractions, where trampolines meet video games, and Pixel Games, where teams collect points and solve puzzles level by level.
It suits school-age kids and teens who want to burn off energy on a cold or rainy day.
Bavaria's Wittelsbach rulers spent their summers here. The main palace has frescoed state rooms, and the 180-hectare park around it has lakes, swans, squirrels and four small park palaces to peek into.
The Marstallmuseum, in the old riding stables, holds over forty royal coaches and sleighs, including King Ludwig II's gilded state coaches and the Rococo coronation coach of Emperor Karl VII.
The world's largest library of international children's books fills a 15th-century castle beside the Würm river. The children's library lends 20,000 books in 24 languages, from Arabic to Ukrainian, and runs courses and readings for kids and families.
Upstairs, the Michael Ende Museum shows the author's books, drawings and belongings, with Momo, Jim Button and Bastian from The Neverending Story. The James Krüss Museum Tower holds more exhibits.
The FC Bayern Museum fills Level 3 of the Allianz Arena with club history since 1900: original trophies, jerseys, match footage and a Hall of Fame of player legends.
The arena tour takes families from the museum into the stadium itself. Kids can rent their own multimedia guide, Café Gisela serves snacks inside the museum, and the FC Bayern Fan Store is right next door.
The BMW Museum traces over 100 years of BMW cars and motorcycles through themed houses on design, technology, motorsport and the brand, in a bowl-shaped building next to the Olympiapark.
Kids walk past race cars, prototypes and the tiny Isetta bubble car, and at least one Art Car painted by artists such as Andy Warhol or Jeff Koons is always on display.
The public museum of the Bavarian State Collection for Paleontology and Geology fills a glass-roofed hall with big skeletons. At the center stands the Mühldorf prehistoric elephant, surrounded by Plateosaurus (the largest dinosaur found in Bavaria), Allosaurus, Triceratops, the giant flying reptile Pteranodon, a giant deer and a cave bear.
Upstairs, a timeline runs through every era of Earth's history. The museum also shows the Munich Archaeopteryx.
One of the largest museums in Germany, with 20 permanent exhibitions on an island in the Isar. Kids walk among planes and helicopters in Modern Aviation, see how locks and bridges work, and try about 20 hands-on light experiments in Classical Optics.
Younger children head to Kids' Kingdom: a marble run, a fire engine to climb into, a giant guitar to crawl inside and a pedal-powered aircraft.
A stage version of Otfried Preußler's classic about a young witch who wants to do good, though her spells still go wrong and it rains clothespins or white mice. With her hungry raven Abraxas she helps the chestnut seller and rescues Korbinian the ox, while the witch Rumpumpel spies on her before the big test on the Blocksberg. Performed in German by a professional cast in full costume.
Astrid Lindgren's Pippi moves into Villa Villekulla with her monkey, Mr. Nilsson, and her horse, and turns life upside down for Tommy and Annika, the well-behaved kids next door. Police officers, robbers and worried neighbors all try to rein her in, and she outwits every one.
Daniela Kranz, who staged Ronja Räubertochter at the Residenztheater, directs this big-stage version with songs and choreography.
Sarah Mettenleiter, a Munich pianist and singer who has played with the Jazzrausch Bigband, tells the story of her younger self, who meets the Nix, a dachshund-like creature that appears in moments of pure boredom. Soon little Sarah is wrongly suspected in a jewel theft and needs the Nix and her classmates to clear her name. A five-piece jazz band plays the score while illustrations tell the story alongside.
Percussionist Samuel Wootton, one of Bergson's resident artists, takes the audience through the world of percussion, from a soft "ting" to a big "boom". Kids don't just listen: they drum, clap and laugh along and become part of the show.
It's Bergson's own production, staged in the Freiraum hall of the Bergson Kunstkraftwerk, a converted power station in Aubing. Good for kids who like noise and hate sitting still.
Wagner's opera, retold for kids. Tannhäuser and his friend Wolfram want to win a singing contest at Wartburg castle, and Elisabeth's heart. Then Tannhäuser goes looking for an apple he dreamed of and is trapped underground by the sorceress Venus, allowed only to sing for her.
Actors from puzzletheater münchen play the story while an 11-piece chamber orchestra, concierto münchen, plays Wagner's music live.
A children's stage version of Mozart's Magic Flute. Prince Tamino, chased by a dragon, sets out to rescue Pamina with Papageno, a funny bird catcher who is not very brave, armed with a magic flute and magic bells.
Actors in full costume tell the story with music and dance, and it leaves kids with a question: was the Queen of the Night telling the truth? A friendly first taste of Mozart for school-age kids.
Dream-Bowl Palace is a big bowling center just outside Munich, with 52 lanes, an 18-hole blacklight minigolf course, 11 pool tables, darts and table soccer. Every lane has bumpers that staff switch on for kids up to 1.37 m tall.
A bistro and lounge serve fries, burgers and nuggets. Weekend evenings turn into Palace Party Night with blacklight and louder music, so families with young kids tend to come earlier.
Boulderwelt München Süd is a bouldering gym in Brunnthal, just south of Munich. Kids under 14 climb in the Kinderwelt, a separate area with kid-sized holds, a hand-painted Alpine scene, a slide and tunnels, or in a mixed area with marked kids' routes beside the adult walls.
Parents can wait in a lounge with coffee. It is not a drop-off: an adult supervises kids the whole time.
Boulderwelt München Ost is a bouldering gym on the upper floors of a building by München Ost station, with 6m walls climbed without ropes.
The 4th floor holds a Kinderwelt just for kids: hand-painted underwater walls with a castle, crawl tunnels and a slide for climbers from about age 2. Kids 6 and up can also use the mixed area, where routes marked with a hand have closer holds.
Dantebad is a city-run outdoor pool that stays heated through the winter, so kids can swim outside in any season. There is a 50-meter lap pool at about 30°C and a warmer leisure pool with bubble loungers, a bubble grotto, a current channel and a water mushroom.
Table tennis, a restaurant and a separate sauna area for adults round it out.
A city-run outdoor pool by the Isar in Giesing, with a 50-meter pool (three lap lanes), a non-swimmer pool and a paddling pool with play features for small kids.
Around them sit a wide slide, a playground, table tennis, an outdoor chess board and a big lawn under old trees.
Naturbad Maria Einsiedel is a natural swimming pool in the Isar meadows, open since 1899. The Isar canal runs almost 400 meters through the grounds, and the water in the 50-meter pool, the non-swimmer area and the large kids' paddling pool is cleaned by microorganisms instead of chlorine. Kids also get a playground, a soccer lawn, table tennis and giant ground chess, with old shade trees over the lawns.
A groundwater-fed swimming lake of nearly 8 hectares, ringed by about 5 hectares of lawn and sandy shoreline in the Dachauer Moos north of Munich. A shallow beach is set aside for small children, with a sand playground near the water rescue station.
Older kids can play beach volleyball on two courts or table tennis by the beer garden. A grill zone allows small family grills.
A groundwater-fed swimming lake dug as a gravel pit in the late 1930s, with about 11 hectares of water ringed by roughly 7 hectares of lawn. A swimming platform floats in the middle, rare for lakes around Munich, and the water reaches about 5 meters deep.
The north shore has a playground, a small soccer field, ping-pong tables and a beer garden, plus a marked barbecue zone.
The Frauenkirche's south tower is one of the cathedral's two onion-domed towers, and the one visitors can climb. Kids walk 86 steps up a narrow spiral staircase, then ride an elevator to the tower room 80 meters up, the highest point in the old town, with windows over the rooftops and the countryside beyond.
The tight stairwell doesn't suit anyone claustrophobic.
Alter Peter is the bell tower of St. Peter's, the oldest parish church in the city, beside Marienplatz. Kids climb 306 steps to a viewing platform over the old town rooftops, and on clear days the view reaches the Alps.
On the way up, windows at the belfry show the eight bells, including one cast for the city's 800th anniversary, and kids can watch them swing when they ring.
Hellabrunn sits on the Isar river meadows and was the world's first geozoo: since 1928 its animals have lived grouped by continent, so kids can walk from the African savanna to the polar world in a few steps. More than 500 species live here, from elephants and tigers to penguins and polar bears. A new jungle world covers Asia, and there's a petting area and playgrounds along the way.
BMW Welt is the carmaker's showroom and delivery center, a sweeping glass building with a twisted double cone at one end. Kids can explore the latest BMW, MINI, Rolls-Royce and BMW Motorrad models up close, and look down on the Premiere, where new owners drive off in their cars.
The BMW Museum, directly opposite, covers more than 100 years of BMW history and runs hands-on workshops for kids.
An outdoor ice rink, 60 meters long, with music playing and floodlights for skating after dark. Kids can do laps, play ice hockey, or join the Münchner Eistanz on the ice.
It opened in 1933 as the first open-air artificial ice rink in southern Germany. In summer the same site becomes the Prinzregentenbad outdoor pool.
A 22-lane bowling center in Giesing, open since 1986 and long known as Isar Bowling. Twelve of the lanes have automatic bumpers for young bowlers, and the cosmic lanes glow under black light. House balls are free and computers keep score, so nobody needs to know the rules.
A billiards and snooker hall sits one floor up, and the center also has darts and a restaurant.
Munich's largest climbing forest has more than 110 elements over 13 courses, strung through 21,000 square meters of woods. Expect wobbly nets, rope bridges and flying foxes up to 11 meters high, with a continuous safety line that can't come unclipped. The smallest climbers get a low course 1 to 2 meters off the ground.
On the ground: a playground, a forest nature trail and the Fater Alm hut restaurant.
A large climbing center run by the German Alpine Club (DAV), with roped walls up to 15 m high inside and out, plus a bouldering hall. Kids get their own routes and boulders, marked with a monkey sign and set with small holds, and a ten-problem kids' course.
Upstairs, an enclosed play area has climbing walls and a slide. Outside there's a playground with a sandbox and a big trampoline.
A German Alpine Club (DAV) climbing center with 5,100 sqm of rope walls (about 500 routes), a separate bouldering hall, and outdoor walls under a wide roof overhang that keeps them climbable in rain.
Kids' routes and boulders carry a small monkey sign and use holds sized for small hands. Downstairs, a play area has a pirate ship, a knights' castle and thick crash mats.
Prinzregentenbad is a public outdoor pool with a 25 m lap pool, a leisure pool with water features, 1 m and 3 m diving boards and a 50 m water slide. Younger kids get a paddling pool with a water play area.
Families spread out on a big lawn under old trees, and there are beach volleyball courts, a restaurant and a kiosk with a beer garden.
Langwieder See is an 18-hectare swimming lake, up to 8 meters deep, and the largest of the three Langwieder lakes alongside Lußsee and Birkensee. Wide lawns around the shore leave room for picnics and ball games, and a restaurant with a beer garden sits by the water.
Barbecues are allowed only in the signed grill zones. Divers have a marked area at the north end, away from the swimming lawns.
Feringasee is a 32-hectare former gravel-pit lake, up to 7 meters deep, ringed by 21 hectares of lawns. In season the south third is the buoyed swimming zone, with a step-free entry on the south shore.
Kids can walk or bike the 2 km loop path, try the beach volleyball court and fitness trail, or explore the wetland on the north shore. A restaurant with beer garden is open year-round.
Built for the 1972 Olympics, the park wraps around a lake and the 60-meter Olympic Hill, a grassy mound piled from wartime rubble with views over the city to the Alps. Kids climb the easy paths to the summit and run the open lawns, and there is boat hire on the Olympic Lake. SEA LIFE, minigolf and the Munich Action Park's climbing kids area sit inside the grounds.
Part of Germany's nationwide reading day. Sabine Bohlmann, Charlotte Habersack and Jörg Hilbert each read from their best-known children's books on the theater stage, including Ritter Rost and Frau Honig. A reading barber, Danny Beuerbach, joins in the afternoon, and the day ends with the authors talking about how they write and where ideas come from.
René Frotscher is an award-winning comedy magician, and his family show mixes sleight of hand with clowning, mime, slapstick and a lot of wordplay. Coins appear out of thin air, scarves and cards vanish, and kids from the audience help out with the tricks. He keeps adding new tricks to the program, so families who have seen him before still get fresh material.
A kids' version of Mozart's The Magic Flute, told through Papageno, the cheerful bird catcher. Prince Tamino sends him to find Princess Pamina, and a small flute helps him past every danger on the way. Singers share the stage with puppets from münchner puzzletheater while the chamber orchestra concierto münchen plays the music live. A good first opera, with the famous tunes and a story kids can follow.
A string quartet and a narrator bring Wagner's Ring of the Nibelung down to kid size. The Praetorius Quartett plays themes from the opera cycle while Katja Jung tells the story of the dwarfs, giants, humans and gods fighting over a magic gold ring.
It takes place in the Parkettgarderobe, a foyer inside Munich's opera house, not the main hall. A first taste of classical music and opera storytelling.
Actor Stefan Wilkening reads Astrid Lindgren's Christmas stories, with Maria Reiter on accordion. Pippi Longstocking invites the town's kids to plunder her Christmas tree, Michel (Emil in English) brings a feast to the poorhouse, and the Bullerbü children bake cookies as presents draw near. Wilkening plays every voice and face. It's in German, so it suits kids who follow spoken German or already know the books.
Timmy, a boy with a flute, goes to Vienna to learn what Mozart's Turkish March is about and meets the storyteller Scheherazade. Her storybook pulls them both into the Arabian Nights: a busy market, a contest of musicians, a conjurer, Sindbad the sailor and a grim palace guard. A chamber ensemble plays Mozart, Rimsky-Korsakov and Tchaikovsky, while an acrobat and actress plays out the story with flying carpets and swirling veils.
Magician Arcato takes the audience on a trip to a Christmas magic land. Kids help Santa get ready for Christmas, hunt for his missing reindeer and watch one trick after another.
The children in the seats are part of the act: some of the spells only work when they help. It suits kids who like to shout out answers and join in, and who can follow a show in German.
Flint was the Stone Age toolmaker's favorite material, and this workshop teaches the basics of shaping it. Kids work with real flint to make carving knives and arrowheads, guided by Dr. Robert Graf. It is part of the museum's program for the Stonehenge exhibition.
A magician vanishes just before his own show. A stranger in a hoodie and his companion LUMO ask the kids to help find him, through illusions, magic tricks and audience volunteers. The kids drive the story, and it pays off at the end.
Balduin Ubinga, a panicked theater director, has been told a rich American wants a jazz concert with scat singing, and nobody knows what scat is. Kids help him find out, alongside a live band of trumpet, piano, drums and double bass.
The show runs from sad blues to wild boogie-woogie, with a little history of African American music along the way, and plenty of clapping, dancing and singing along.
One night Herr Sumsemann, a maybug, taps on Peterchen and Anneliese's window, and the three fly past the Night Fairy and the Star Meadow to the moon to win back his lost sixth leg. Composer Alexander Krampe set Gerdt von Bassewitz's classic German story to music, played by the Bergson Artists on piano, violin, viola and cello, with Maximilian Maier singing and narrating. It suits kids happy to sit and listen.
A shortened family version of Mozart's The Magic Flute, keeping the famous music but not the full-length run. Three singers, a narrator and a one-person keyboard "orchestra" tell the story of Prince Tamino, Papageno the bird-catcher and the Queen of the Night, pitched at grown-ups as much as kids. It's performed in German, and works best for kids who already enjoy music and a good story.
Bummelkasten is a Berlin one-man band who builds songs almost entirely with his mouth: a cappella vocals, beatbox and live loop-station layers, often performed from an armchair. The songs star odd characters, like Princess Susi, who grills pony sausage and drives a monster truck to the bakery, and Max, the toilet-paper thief who rides escalators. The lyrics are sharp and funny enough that parents laugh along too.
The award-winning percussion duo Double Drums performs a family concert featuring world percussion instruments, saws, power drills, and cardboard boxes transformed into musical instruments. The musicians interact with the audience through rhythmic storytelling: stampeding wildebeest, ocean waves, and desert storms rendered as "ear cinema." The program includes humor, audience participation, and explanations of diverse percussion traditions.
A Christmas ballet where professional dancers share the stage with students from German ballet schools. On Christmas Eve, Clara meets the brave Nutcracker, who saves her from the Mouse King, and the two set off into a night where dreams and secret wishes come true.
It suits families with kids who dance or love fairy tales, and grown-ups who want a classical Nutcracker.
A family ice show built on the songs from both Frozen films, sung live by musical soloists while ice dancers and acrobats fill the ice. Elsa, Anna, Olaf, Kristoff and Sven are all there, and a giant LED screen turns the stage to ice and blue crystals when Elsa sings "Let It Go".
It suits kids who already know the films and want to see the characters in person.
A children's theater where professional actors stage fairy tales and classic children's books: Grimm, Hauff and Andersen alongside Astrid Lindgren, Otfried Preußler, Janosch and Michael Ende. Sets and costumes are elaborate, and the repertoire runs to at least 16 plays. Plays are performed in German.
The hall sits in a listed 1916 former cinema with Jugendstil interiors, and the raised stage gives a clear view from almost every seat.
The Münchner Marionettentheater carries on a string-puppet tradition dating to 1858, in a small theater by architect Theodor Fischer that opened near Sendlinger Tor in 1900. Afternoon shows are the kids' program: fairy tales, children's classics and Christmas plays told with marionettes. Evening shows, including opera, are for teens and adults. All 14 rows have a clear view of the stage.
A 1,150 m² indoor laser tag arena in Garching, just north of Munich, with obstacles, raised platforms, and light and sound effects. Up to 50 players wear Laserforce Gen8 vests, and power-ups change how each round plays.
Staff give a short briefing before play, so first-timers can join in. A lounge serves pizza, snacks and drinks between rounds.
