From listening to testing your balance, from building sandcastles to hide-and-seek – the playground at the ‘Alter Bären’ Restaurant (311) on the edge of the forest is a fun place for children of all ages.

Younger visitors can have a go at rearranging the Swiss Open-Air Museum – thanks to the magnetic pieces!

In olden days baking your own bread was of great importance in order to put food on the table. Farmers’ wives would bake their bread in the oven houses, which were often owned by the local community. In the baking room of the Stöckli from Detligen/Radelfingen BE (333) the Museum’s bakers fire up the wood-burning oven every day in the early morning.

Bobbin lace-making is like weaving but with threads which are wound around spools of a type called bobbins. The threads are crossed over each other.

There’s a fire! At the ‘Brandboden’ our younger guests can pretend they’re in the fire brigade! When the bucket is filled with water, the hand sprayer is used. Using all their strength they have to pump enough water to put out the fire. When the bell rings, you’ve beaten the fire.

In the cellar in the granary from Wellhausen TG (622), our younger visitors can play with the toys of their ancestors. Little ones can walk around on stilts, ride a hobbyhorse, look through children’s books, pile up building blocks, dress up rag dolls or play a game of ring-toss – now, how many of those old games do you remember?

In the hut from Champatsch / Val Müstair GR (1311) people cook as the farmer's wives used to do every day. Come by and try a bite.

The individual roof tiles are heavy, but they keep out the rain for many years. Have a go yourself and help re-roof our houses.

An elf and his helpers meet at the edge of the woods. They are the principle figures in the exhibition "Enchanted Forest" and lead the children from one theme to another.

The regular ring of a hammer can be heard from a distance as one approaches the Smithy from Bümpliz BE (1052). Courses run by the Ballenberg Course Centre are often held in the old village smithy.  Watch our blacksmiths at work at their powerful craft.

You can touch the exhibits here – and join in fun, hands-on activities too. Depending on the day, experts will help you learn how to weave straw, do woodwork or even print bags.

In the year 2000 the Ballenberg Open-Air Museum took possession of a complete hat maker's workshop. Its new home is in the Dwelling from Villnachern AG (211). On certain days of the week it is possible to watch the hat makers at work.

The hobby workshop in the Dwelling from Matten, Berne (1021) invites you to do-it-yourself.

The hand plane is used to work on wooden surfaces, joints and edges. You can try this tool at the workbench  and take your piece of wood with you. On the second table there are materials that have been found, are off-cuts or collected for recycling which are ready to be used for handicrafts. Find ideas on site in the sketch book. You can also record your project in the book for other visitors.

Did you know that the cocoon of the silkworm consists of a silk thread that’s three kilometres long? In the space of just 30 days, the tiny little silkworm matures into a caterpillar measuring up to nine centimetres long. It then spins itself into a cocoon by turning over 250,000 times.

Discover this and other fascinating facts when you visit our silk workshop in the Farmstead from Novazzano (851), where children and their parents can get creative together and design their own silkworms using threads, yarn and fabric scraps. They can then take these little works of art home as a souvenir or add them to our caterpillar family up on display in the workshop. This experience offers an exciting insight into the world of the silkworm.

In the dark kitchen of the farmhouse from Madiswil BE (321) farmers’ wives prepared the daily food. They stood in the smoke for many hours at the low stove - an everyday life that is hard to imagine. The smoke from the hearth fire served to preserve sausages, bacon and other pieces of meat. These days sausages hang from the ceiling in smoke - you can purchase these ‘homemade’ sausages in the Ballenberg shop.

The women weavers in the Ballenberg Open-Air Museum regularly sit at the 200-year-old loom in the weaving cellar, letting the shuttles glide across the warp. In the weaving cellar it is possible to purchase handwoven products such as the legendary “Znüni”, bread bags with the Haslital pattern, or towels and linen Kirschstein bags.

The Ballenberg Open-Air Museum houses the former workshop of the brothers Alfred (1882-1972) and Hans Stähli (1887-1979) in the Dwelling from Brienz BE (1031). Modern-day wood carvers have equipped a new workshop alongside the old one of the Stähli brothers, and here they demonstrate how the tradition of wood carving has withstood the test of time.

The cheese dairy in Ballenberg functions on an almost daily basis. In House 1361, the Alpine Cheese Dairy from Kandersteg BE, visitors can not only look at the various bits of apparatus needed for cheesemaking but also follow the process itself as it happens.

Gather round the table in the herders’ old living room/bedroom in the Cheese Dairy from Kandersteg BE (1361) and enjoy some tea and coffee together.

Here, you can get a hands-on insight into our rich Alpine culture. Visitors are free to touch and try out everything in this room, from strapping on a milking stool to milking a cow. Our younger visitors can dress up in the kinds of clothes people used to wear 100 years ago, or try carrying cheese around on their backs.

The loud puffing and wheezing in the Sawmill from Rafz ZH (691) can be heard from a long way off. The regular rhythmic noise of the machine is an almost daily feature at the Ballenberg Open-Air Museum when the sawyers start it up and begin sawing wood the old way. The drive mechanism is a showpiece in itself. The power is delivered by an overshot water wheel. The water shoots out of the channel from above, falls on to the wheel blades and sets the wheel in motion. The drive power is transmitted to the frame saw in several stages by means of giant cog wheels and transmission belts.