The best Amsterdam Museums for kids you’ll love
A handpicked selection of the best Amsterdam museums for kids of all ages + tips for a successful museum visit with children.
Amsterdam has world-class museums and many of them are great for kids, as well as art lovers.
The city has a good mix of traditional art museums and quirky ones and it is perfect for families as you know you will find something your kids will love, no matter their ages.
Museums are an excellent resource for our family.
They are a fantastic rainy day escape and while very small kids may need a little bit of help in some of the most traditional museum spaces (see our tips below), we found Amsterdam museums to be exceptionally kid-friendly.
Some Amsterdam museums are just for them.
Others are traditional art museums with exhibits and programs that make them perfect for kids. This is also why you find several of them in my list of what we consider the best things to do in Amsterdam with kids.
Today, I am going to share the best museums in Amsterdam you can visit with kids. I hope you find it helpful!
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Four reasons why we love visiting Amsterdam’s museums with kids
Most Amsterdam museums offer free entrance or reduced tickets for kids, always good for the family budget!
Even large, traditional museums often offer tours for kids.
Unlike other cities, where you may need to break the back to book a private kids’ guide, several museums in Amsterdam offer free family programs or children’s services to make even the younger guests feel welcome.
Amsterdam has museums for everything!
Depending on your interests and children’s mood on the day, you can tackle a large museum or build it up slowly with an unusual one, like the Houseboat museum or Our Lord in the Attic.
There is nothing better than a small, curiosity-tickling exhibition to start a lifelong love for museum visits and Amsterdam is simply perfect for planting that seed!
Our favorite Amsterdam museums for kids
Nemo Science Museum, Amsterdam
Nemo is The Netherlands’Netherlands’ largest science center and the best family attraction in Amsterdam, bar none!
The museum is HUGE. You first catch a glimpse of it from outside: the massive structure that hosts Nemo is an Amsterdam landmark and a stunning feature of the city!
Inside, you find five floors packed with learning areas, science workshops and technological machinery to experience.
Our kids adored learning how to make a dam (there were lots of hands-on splashing involved), they marveled at the space exploration area, they pushed more buttons and moved more cogs than I could count.
They also hugely enjoyed the cause-effect principle demonstration that was a fantastic mix of a science experiment and a circus act!
To top it all, Nemo has a stunning, free roof terrace with water fountains the kids can play in and a lovely cafe with views for parents to get a drink while soaking up Amsterdam’s cityscape.
Nemo is fantastic and one of our favorite places in Amsterdam for kids of any age and primary school kids/ tweens especially.
Top tip! The terrace on top has a lovely cafe/ restaurant, perfect for lunch or a snack.
Scheepvaartmuseum – Amsterdam Maritime Museum
Another extraordinary Amsterdam Museum for kids is the National Maritime (Scheepvaartmuseum).
The museum is entirely devoted to the maritime history of the Dutch empire and has a great collection of paintings, models of ships, navigation instruments and maps of the world.
What is most likely to pique the attention of the kids, however, is the lifesize replica of a real ship, the East Indiaman, moored in front of the museum and complete with masts, sails and all!
The real Dutch East Indiaman sank on its first voyage to Asia near the town of Hastings in 1749.
The replica we see today is a faithful recreation of what the trade ship looked like and it is a fantastic place to explore with kids.
As well as the excitement of being on the ship, for my two worth the admission ticket in itself, the ship has great exhibits and augmented reality experiences that make it come to life.
Address: Kattenburgerplein 1 1018 KK Amsterdam Web: https://www.hetscheepvaartmuseum.com/
STRAAT – The Street Art Museum of Amsterdam
Straat is a the graffiti and street art museums of Amsterdam and is a great one to visit with kids and teens especially as it is colorful, immersive, different and fun.
The museum is in Amsterdam Noord, itself a fun area to explore with kids and has a free treasure hunt for them you can get at the ticket desk!
Tropen Museum – the Ethnographic Museum of Amsterdam
The Tropenmuseum is one of Europe’sEurope’s leading ethnographic museums and one of the best museums in Amsterdam for children.
Founded in 1975, it is the oldest children museum in the Netherlands and pioneered the educational approach that sees education as the result of a comprehensive sensory and intellectual experience: this is not a see-but-do-not-touch-museum, quite the opposite!
In the Tropenmuseums, kids find has many interactive exhibits from all over the world, they can hear stories of faraway lands and learn about world cultures they may not have had the chance to experience.
The museum has a strong family focus and offers activities for toddlers as well as older kids.
Address: Linnaeusstraat 21092 CK Amsterdam Web: https://www.tropenmuseum.nl/en/
Amsterdam Houseboat Museum
As they walk along Amsterdam canals, your children will notice many houseboats.
If they get curious and wonder what it would be like to live on a houseboat in Amsterdam, we have a solution: the Amsterdam houseboat museum!
The houseboats museum is a traditional Amsterdam houseboat now open to the public.
Centrally located on the Prinsengracht, you hop on board walking in a short plank and you can see all the boat’s living quarters.
The boat is small compared with a traditional home, but it has all you need for comfy living, and it is fantastic for kids. They are unlikely to have seen anything like it anywhere else!
Top tip: this is a small museum, in a lovely location in Amsterdam Jordaan district. It is one of the easiest museums to include in your Amsterdam itinerary, as it only takes a little time to visit but packs a punch in terms of charm and is sure to pique your kids’ curiosity.
Address: Prinsengracht 296K, 1016 HW Amsterdam Web: https://houseboatmuseum.nl/
The Van Gogh Museum for kids
The Van Gogh Museum holds the most extensive collection of Van Gogh paintings in the world and it is a fantastic place to visit with kids.
Vag Gogh’s art, with its bright colors and clear strokes, tends to fascinate children and the museum also offers a unique multimedia family guide to keep little ones engaged and kid-friendly activities.
The famous Van Gogh masterpiece The Potato Eaters has been turned into a fun interactive exhibit for kids where they can step into the painting, several workshops take place on Wednesday and Saturday and get kids to color and draw and there are two treasure hunts in the museum for kids of different ages (4+, 6+ and a checklist for age 12+).
This is a fantastic example of a museum combining priceless art and a welcoming family atmosphere.
Address: Museumplein 6, 1071 DJ Amsterdam Web: https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en
Ons’ Liever Heer op Solder – Our Lord in the Attic
Our Lord in the Attic is a special place in Amsterdam and one that kids will love for its uprise factor and peculiar history.
Rather than a museum in the traditional sense, Our Lord in the Attic is a church, hidden inside a historic home!
This hidden church is ”in the attic”, hence its name, and was built during the Reformation, a time when Catholics were forbidden to hold public services.
This museum offers a fun family discovery tour, that leads the kids to discover the place through different stations marked with Nan The Ladybug, the museum mascot.
Children will learn why the church is hidden but also how the organ works and more. This is another fantastic Amsterdam museum for kids and grownups alike.
Address: Oudezijds Voorburgwal 38, 1012 GD ,Amsterdam Web: https://www.opsolder.nl/en/kids
Anne Franke House with kids (10 and up)
The Anne Frank House is now open to the public and an important museum to visit with kids of a suitable age.
The tour leads you to the main house and the secret annex and it is an incredible way to tap into the time and what it must have been like to live in hiding under such awful threat.
There is no right age to visit Anne Franke’s House.
However, since the experience can be harrowing, the museum has a minimum age requirement of 10 years of age and is best suited to teens and older kids.
Address: Museum entrance is at Westermarkt 20, Amsterdam Web: http://www.annefrank.org/en/
Rijksmuseum with kids
The Rijksmuseum is one of the most important and impressive art museums in the work and one you cannot miss while in Amsterdam.
This is where you can see pieces of the most important Dutch masters and the famous Nightwatch, which attracts visitors from all over the world.
The museum is traditional in layout, with paintings exposed in stunning, tall and elegant rooms; however, it is also easy to visit with kids!
Special activities for children include a family-guided tour, a family game to unveil eight fascinating Rijksmuseum mysteries and the museum has a fantastic souvenir shop that our kids adore!
Families with toddlers will love to know that the museum is stroller friendly (there is also a limited number of pushchairs available on loan).
Find here >>> our tips for visiting the Rijksmuseum with children
Practical tips for visiting Amsterdam museums with kids
As you can see from this list of museums and activities, Amsterdam Museums are well equipped to welcome families.
However, we found these tips to be handy, especially if you are new to museum family visits and are worried about how the kids may react.
The following tricks work for us:
Eat first – Our kids do not cooperate with anything when hungry and making sure they are well fed before going in always helps!
We love to give them enough so they have energy and are happy but not too much that we can’t enjoy the museum cafe or souvenir shop afterward (see tip below!)
Bribe them – The staple of modern parenthood, right? We usually promise the kids a treat for after the museum visit. Cake at the museum cafe usually works best but a pen or trinket from the museum shops also does the job.
Tell them what to expect / what is expected of them – before we go into any museum, we always have ‘the talk’. We find that telling the kids what to expect, what type of behavior is expected and what the place is like helps set expectations and suitable manners.
Make the restroom your first stop – self-explanatory but, like food, a must!
Make your own scavenger hunt with museum postcard – Amsterdam museums are well equipped with family programs. however, should you want to do things in your won time or not find a suitable one, you can make your own! Stop at the museum shop first and pick up some postcards: then send the children on a mission to find the real thing!
Give them pencil and paper – if your children love drawing, equip them with a pencil, paper, a rubber (use the artists’ ones that don’t live debris) and a magazine for support and let them make their own museum-inspired masterpiece.
For large museums, make a plan – larger museums are likely too much for small kids. As you go in, get a leaflet with the museum plan and select what you want to see. Then give the map to the kids so they can lead you there and feel in control.
I hope you enjoyed this quick overview of the best museums in Amsterdam for kids. Safe travel planning!
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