Fun Things to do in San Francisco

1. Exploratorium
This eye-popping art and science museum mesmerizes kids and adults alike. The museum touts over 500 exhibits, including hands-on activities, science experiments, and interactive galleries incorporating sight, touch, memory, and perception. Even toddlers will get a kick out of exhibits involving light, bubbles, and sound. Whether youre ogling rare plants, baffling physics displays, or awe-inspiring art (a sculpture made from 100,000 toothpicks?!), it's easy to spend a full day here.

2. Butterfly Joint
A woodworking shop for children sounds like an unlikely concept, but theyre in good hands with Butterfly Joint owner Danny Montoya, a credentialed early-childhood educator who knows his way around a workbench. The Outer Richmond workshop offers classes and camps for kids as young as 2. Tykes clock in with punch cards, don mini work aprons, and get to work on projects like name boards, keepsake boxes, tables, stools, wooden spoons, and more. Rest assured, there are no power tools involved. Advanced students (ages 10 and up) learn how to use chisels, hammers, and dovetail saws.

3. House of Air
This is one afternoon excursion guaranteed to tire your kid out. House of Air is technically a trampoline gym, but it, if you ask them, they're an adrenaline park. The sprawling, high-ceilinged space includes a trampoline court, where dozens of connected trampolines are surrounded by cushy angled walls, and a trampoline dodgeball court with friendly pick-up games (and a built-in ref) - not to mention a rock climbing wall and foam pits. Kids aged 3 to 6 have access to a mini trampoline area specifically reserved for little jumpers.

4. The Coop
The Coop calls itself a playspace, but thats underselling it: Its more like a carnival-meets-playground-meets-toy store. The 3,000-square-foot area includes a huge ball pit, an electronic dance floor, a bouncy house, a rope-climbing tube, a twisty slide, and a slew of dress-up garb, books, and toys. Its a popular spot for open play, as well as for kid birthday parties, in which parents can choose from dozens of themes. The best part, though, is the welcome amenities for grown-ups. While your kiddos bounce, climb, and dance their hearts out, parents can kick back with an impressive magazine selection, a full cappuccino bar, and free wifi.

5. Mus̩e M̩canique
Local legend Edward Galland Zelinsky founded this museum as a showcase for his unparalleled collection of antique oddities, namely coin-operated mechanical musical instruments and antique arcade machines. This place is a blast for kids of all ages, and a lesson in San Francisco amusement park history. The assortment spans more than 300 items, including coin-operated pianos, antique slot machines, hand-cranked music boxes, salvaged bits of local history, a steam-powered motorcycle, and various vintage arcade games. The arcades are all in working condition and most cost only $.25 or $.50 to play. For kids who need to blow-off steam modern-style, there are a handful of video games and skee ball in the back.

6. Castro Theatre
This historic theater in the heart of the Castro reserves various Saturday and Sunday showings each month for modern kid classics, from Moana to Mulan. The family matinees make for good, unfussy fun. The excitement dials up to 11 on weekends that movie musical sing-alongs are on the schedule. Hosted by Sara Moore and Laurie Bushman, the productions start with a costume contest, in which kids of all ages strut across the stage. (Goody bags for all!) Then the lights dim and the movie rolls, complete with on-screen lyrics and a bouncing icon for young readers to follow along.

7. Childrens Creativity Museum
Imagination and creativity rules at the Children's Creativity Museum. Rather than a rowdy playspace, this high-tech museum is thoughtfully designed to encourage invention. In the Animation Lab, kids knead clay into characters and create their own stop-motion movies. In the Tech Lab, future Googlers learn how to write code by programming robots to play music and solve puzzles. In the Music Studio, kids can star in their own music videoscomplete with costumes and green screen technology. Outside, take a spin on the ornate LeRoy King Carousel, a storied relic originally constructed in 1906 which has been twirling in this Yerba Buena location since 1998.

8. California Academy of Sciences
Considered the worlds greenest museum, the Academy combines an aquarium, planetarium, natural history museum and scientific research program under one roof. The complex is anchored by a four-story rainforest dome thats home to flitting butterflies and birds, and a living roof that features some 1.7 million native plant species. In between is the Steinhart Aquarium (which boasts the worlds deepest living coral reef display), an Amazonian flooded forest," the all-digital Morrison Planetarium, a live penguin habitat, an African Hall with lifesize dioramas of lions and gazelles, and the swampy home of Claude the albino alligator.

9. Walt Disney Family Museum
The Walt Disney Family Museum is dedicated to the life of Walt Disney and the beloved artistic empire he inspired. Inside, permanent exhibits document Disneys innovations in sound and animation and provide a fascinating look at the career of the man behind the mouse, including the audio-enhanced tale of how Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was almost abandoned. Regularly rotating exhibits feature the work of revered animators and artistic collaborations, some of which, like Disneys project with Spanish surrealist Salvador Dali, were never completed. Stop by the Fantasia-themed theater to catch a Disney classic six days a week.

10. Pirate Supply Store
The Pirate Supply Store and King Carls Emporium are the dual retail fronts of the nonprofit youth writing centers, 826 Valencia. Both offer loads of kitschy, tongue-in-cheek fun for kids and their parents. At the Pirate Supply Store in the Mission, there are treasures hidden behind every door and inside every drawer. A wealth of ironic pirate gear and paraphernalia, including skull and crossbones die, peg leg sizing charts (plus, peg leg oil, for conditioning said prosthetic), eye patches, hooks, jailer keys, gold coins, and more will have both you and your singing sea shanties in no time.