Haagse Hout is the green side of town: old woods that start a short walk from Centraal station, estate gardens, forest playgrounds built for climbing, and a city farm with animals to visit. When it rains, there are museums close by. This list pulls together the parks, places and upcoming kids' events in the district, and it updates as new plans come in.
Kids find out what children played with in Roman times, about 2,000 years ago: balls, dolls, marbles and knucklebones, often made by the kids themselves.
Then they get to work with clay and felt alongside an (almost) real Roman lady and make a Roman toy of their own. It suits kids who like history or making things with their hands.
The Hague's Christmas circus returns to a heated big top on the Malieveld with an all-new show. More than 20 artists from around the world take the ring: a Colombian high-wire troupe, an all-female Hungarian teeterboard team, a 12-ring juggler, a contortionist, a classic clown, dancing border collies and a musician who plays five flutes at once. Dutch singer Enza, from The Winner Takes It All, sings during the show.
The gro-up Jeugdloop is the kids' part of the NN CPC Loop Den Haag, the city's major running event. Children run a 1 km or a 2.5 km race, starting on Koningskade beside the Malieveld.
Finish times are officially measured and every finisher gets a medal to keep. The 1 km suits first-timers and younger kids; the 2.5 km is for older kids who already enjoy running.
The Hague's Bevrijdingsfestival marks Dutch Liberation Day with live music at the Malieveld, an open field in the city center.
It suits kids who are happy in a big crowd with loud music. A child who needs quiet may find it too much.
Clingendael is a landscaped estate park with woodland paths, an old Dutch garden of box hedges and flower beds, a curving 18th-century fruit wall and a dogs' cemetery under a linden tree. Its Japanese Garden, laid out over a century ago by Baroness Marguérite van Brienen after a trip to Japan, is the largest in the Netherlands, with stone lanterns, a thatched pavilion and fragile moss.
Haagse Bos is a centuries-old forest in the middle of the city, protected since the Act of Redemption and the oldest protected forest in Western Europe. Kids build their own huts in its two play forests, and deer rest in the Koekamp among ponds and winding paths.
There are open lawns for lounging, and a skate track by the Malieveld with bumps for skaters and BMX riders.
Speelbos Robin Hood is a natural play forest in the Haagse Bos, run by Staatsbosbeheer. Kids follow an adventure route over rope and suspension bridges, fly along a cable slide, swing through the trees on ropes and take on a climbing wall.
For a slower pace there is a big rope swing to lie back in and a tree trunk where kids sit and tell each other stories.
Reigershof is a municipal city farm from 1976, named after the Reigersbergen green space around it. Kids can brush the goats in the pasture, visit the big rabbits, and help at feeding time if they ask the farm manager.
There is a scavenger hunt, a little swap library of children's books in the stable, and a nature playground on the grounds.
The Children's Book Museum shares the Royal Library building with the Museum of Literature. Kids play inside book worlds: treasure hunting with Bear and pie baking with Pig in I am Frog, from Max Velthuijs's books, or roaming Papiria to beat the Ink Gobbler and write their own story, poem or comic. Under-7s get The Storytime Tent and the clamber-and-play ABC with the Animals and Me.
The Louwman Museum holds more than 275 rare and iconic automobiles, from the first motorized vehicles to designs far ahead of their time, plus car posters, sculptures, trophies and miniatures.
Kids get a free printed treasure hunt and pen on arrival: each answer found in the halls gives a letter toward a hidden word, and a solved sheet earns a small gift at the museum shop.
Haagse Hout is the green side of town: old woods that start a short walk from Centraal station, estate gardens, forest playgrounds built for climbing, and a city farm with animals to visit. When it rains, there are museums close by. This list pulls together the parks, places and upcoming kids' events in the district, and it updates as new plans come in.
Kids find out what children played with in Roman times, about 2,000 years ago: balls, dolls, marbles and knucklebones, often made by the kids themselves.
Then they get to work with clay and felt alongside an (almost) real Roman lady and make a Roman toy of their own. It suits kids who like history or making things with their hands.
The Hague's Christmas circus returns to a heated big top on the Malieveld with an all-new show. More than 20 artists from around the world take the ring: a Colombian high-wire troupe, an all-female Hungarian teeterboard team, a 12-ring juggler, a contortionist, a classic clown, dancing border collies and a musician who plays five flutes at once. Dutch singer Enza, from The Winner Takes It All, sings during the show.
The gro-up Jeugdloop is the kids' part of the NN CPC Loop Den Haag, the city's major running event. Children run a 1 km or a 2.5 km race, starting on Koningskade beside the Malieveld.
Finish times are officially measured and every finisher gets a medal to keep. The 1 km suits first-timers and younger kids; the 2.5 km is for older kids who already enjoy running.
The Hague's Bevrijdingsfestival marks Dutch Liberation Day with live music at the Malieveld, an open field in the city center.
It suits kids who are happy in a big crowd with loud music. A child who needs quiet may find it too much.
Clingendael is a landscaped estate park with woodland paths, an old Dutch garden of box hedges and flower beds, a curving 18th-century fruit wall and a dogs' cemetery under a linden tree. Its Japanese Garden, laid out over a century ago by Baroness Marguérite van Brienen after a trip to Japan, is the largest in the Netherlands, with stone lanterns, a thatched pavilion and fragile moss.
Haagse Bos is a centuries-old forest in the middle of the city, protected since the Act of Redemption and the oldest protected forest in Western Europe. Kids build their own huts in its two play forests, and deer rest in the Koekamp among ponds and winding paths.
There are open lawns for lounging, and a skate track by the Malieveld with bumps for skaters and BMX riders.
Speelbos Robin Hood is a natural play forest in the Haagse Bos, run by Staatsbosbeheer. Kids follow an adventure route over rope and suspension bridges, fly along a cable slide, swing through the trees on ropes and take on a climbing wall.
For a slower pace there is a big rope swing to lie back in and a tree trunk where kids sit and tell each other stories.
Reigershof is a municipal city farm from 1976, named after the Reigersbergen green space around it. Kids can brush the goats in the pasture, visit the big rabbits, and help at feeding time if they ask the farm manager.
There is a scavenger hunt, a little swap library of children's books in the stable, and a nature playground on the grounds.
The Children's Book Museum shares the Royal Library building with the Museum of Literature. Kids play inside book worlds: treasure hunting with Bear and pie baking with Pig in I am Frog, from Max Velthuijs's books, or roaming Papiria to beat the Ink Gobbler and write their own story, poem or comic. Under-7s get The Storytime Tent and the clamber-and-play ABC with the Animals and Me.
The Louwman Museum holds more than 275 rare and iconic automobiles, from the first motorized vehicles to designs far ahead of their time, plus car posters, sculptures, trophies and miniatures.
Kids get a free printed treasure hunt and pen on arrival: each answer found in the halls gives a letter toward a hidden word, and a solved sheet earns a small gift at the museum shop.
