Your guide to 37 kids events & activities in Birmingham this month — with dates, prices & ages, updated weekly. (Updated August 2026)
1 kids activities and family events are listed in Birmingham right now, including 1 free things to do.
Updated August 2026
Where to go, what it costs and which bits work best at each age — written for families planning a day out in and around Birmingham.
The classic Birmingham day out starts in Bournville at Cadbury World, where the self-guided tour ends with a chocolate-tempering bench, and finishes with a walk around the Bournville village green. In the city centre, Thinktank at Millennium Point pairs four floors of science galleries with the outdoor Science Garden and a planetarium, which makes it the most reliable choice when you need three hours indoors and out of the weather. Ten minutes away, the Library of Birmingham has a dedicated children's library and a rooftop garden with views across Centenary Square that most visitors never find.
For a bigger trip, West Midlands Safari Park at Bewdley is a drive-through reserve with lions, white tigers and a separate theme-park area, and the Black Country Living Museum at Dudley is a working Victorian village with a canal boat trip and a fish-and-chip shop frying in beef dripping. Both are 30–45 minutes out of the city and both are full-day visits rather than add-ons. Browse the top 10 attractions for kids in Birmingham for the full shortlist.
Birmingham is unusually strong on free. Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, the Barber Institute of Fine Arts on the university campus, and the RSPB reserve at Sandwell Valley are all free to enter. Cannon Hill Park has a boating lake, a maze and one of the better playgrounds in the city, and Sutton Park — 2,400 acres of heath, woodland and lakes, one of Europe's largest urban parks — costs nothing but the parking. Winterbourne House charges for the gardens, but the neighbouring Edgbaston reservoir circuit is free and buggy-friendly.
For organised free activity rather than open space, look at free events for kids in Birmingham — library storytimes, museum craft drop-ins and park trails run most weeks and rarely need booking.
Rain is the normal planning assumption here. The National SEA LIFE Centre in Brindleyplace takes about 90 minutes and sits under cover next to the canal-side restaurants, so it works as half a day with lunch. Thinktank and Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery are the two big indoor holds. For active indoor time, Ackers Adventure has an indoor climbing wall alongside its dry ski slope, and the trampoline and soft-play centres around Digbeth and Perry Barr take walk-ins outside school holidays. In the Bullring, the two-level Selfridges building plus the covered markets make a surprisingly workable wet-afternoon loop with a toddler.
You can also filter straight to museum events for kids in Birmingham and arts and crafts workshops, which are almost all indoor.
Toddlers (0–4): Cannon Hill Park, the Birmingham Botanical Gardens playground, Ash End House children's farm at Middleton, and library rhymetimes. Keep to two hours and somewhere with a café.
Ages 5–8: Cadbury World, the SEA LIFE Centre, Thinktank's lower galleries and the Black Country Living Museum, where the costumed demonstrations hold this age better than any label-reading museum. Activities for children aged 6–11 lists what is currently on for this bracket.
Ages 9–12: Thinktank's upper floors and planetarium, the climbing wall and high ropes at Ackers Adventure, escape rooms in the Jewellery Quarter, and science and STEM activities, which skew towards this age group.
Almost everything in the centre is walkable from New Street, and the West Midlands Metro runs from Grand Central out to the Jewellery Quarter free of steps. Cadbury World is a five-minute walk from Bournville station on the Cross-City line, which is easier than driving on a weekend. Under-5s travel free on buses and the Metro, and 5–15s travel at child rate with a Swift card. For the out-of-town sites — West Midlands Safari Park, Woburn-style safari drives, Dudley — you need a car. City-centre parking is cheapest in the Bullring and Millennium Point car parks, and both are covered, which matters with a pushchair in February.