Liverpool is like the London of the north (if not better) and we think it deserves much more press than it currently gets. If you’re thinking of visiting Liverpool with kids and you’re wondering what activities there are for children in Liverpool, have no fear because there’s SO MUCH to do, you won’t have enough time to fit it all in.
Carry on reading after the 100 things you can do, to find homeschool classes that are held during the week.
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100 things to do with kids in Liverpool
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- Liverpool has a thriving home ed community. You can join this facebook group to see what they’re up to. They have everything from one off, free beat box classes to weekly sports classes, museum trips and more.
- The Everyman Playhouse is Liverpool’s most famous theatre and not only offers world-class productions but also holiday clubs for kids where they put on a play at the end of the week.
- Liverpool has SEVEN national museums & art galleries: The Museum of Liverpool, The World Museum, The International Slavery Museum, The Maritime Museum, Walker Art Gallery, Sudley house and Lady Lever Art Gallery and they’re ALL FREE!
- Victoria Gallery & Museum at the University of Liverpool offer free, family weekend art classes once a month through the year as well as free holiday workshops. Get hands on with a range of natural history specimens including skulls, fossils and taxidermy, and meet the university scientists who can answer all your questions. Take part in some fun crafts too.
- Even if you’re not religious, Liverpool Cathedral is impressive and they welcome all children into their education centre. Underneath there are also the Lutyens’ Crypt and you can climb the Vestey Tower too
- The Liverpool War Museum (now named Western Approaches HQ) contains an amazing secret underground WWII bunker.
- St.Luke’s Bombed Out Church Gardens. A former 1800’s Anglican parish church, these landmark ruins stand as a war memorial & space for markets, sports events, local events, makers market. bombedoutchurch.com
- SpacePort has just closed for a major refurbishment to create Eureka! The National Children’s Museum which will be opening in 2022.
- The Liverpool Philhamonical Orchestra holds regular school concerts which home eders are eligible for. They give out lesson plans, ideas on learning and tie it into the school curriculum.
- FACT is a 4-screen cinema showing mainstream and art house films. It also has three media art galleries and a garden cafe.
- British Music Experience tells the story of British Music through costumes, instruments, performance and interactive exhibits. Show cases artists from the Beatles to Adele. The British Music Experience, located on the ground floor of the Cunard is a permanent exhibition dedicated to some of the finest British music artists ever to walk the globe, from 1940 to present day.
- If you’ve ever want to visit a drive in cinema, visit Route 66.
- Imagine That! Science and Discovery Centre offers hands on learning including an infamous slime factory most weekends.
- The Danny is a steamship cruise on the rivers of the Wirral and north. Open in the warmer months you can also have free guided tours and cream teas onboard.
- Get to understand underground Liverpool with a trip to Williamsons Tunnels. They are thought to have been created under the direction of tobacco merchant, landowner and philanthropist Joseph Williamson between 1810 and 1840 although there exact purpose is unknown.
- Visit Canalside Park, take a picnic, watch the geese, smell the wild flowers and sit alongside the Liverpool-Leeds canal.
- Speke Hall Riverside estate house with over 400 years of history, extensive serene grounds and woodland.
- The Garstang Museum of Archaeology houses an Egyptian Mummy
- Take an art, photography, felting or sculpture class with Dot Art. They run one-off classes and courses for kids and adults at various locations around the city.
- The Stanley Docks were established in 1848, and feature the world’s largest historical, brick quay warehouses. Now transformed into swanky living & restaurant areas they once stored rum & tobacco from around the world. The Glaciere Maritime Academy, located there, offers diving, sailing, power-boating, canoeing and even scuba diving.
- Sugar & Dice boardgame cafe perfect for those bad weather days.
- The BlueCoat, a Grade I listed, 300 year old building in the heart of Liverpool’s city centre, offers a year-round programme of visual art, literature, music, dance and family activities. In addition, Bluecoat is home to a wide range of artists and creative businesses, ranging from jewellery and ceramic ware to hand-made accessories, boutique clothing and specialist hand-engraving and silversmith services.
- If it’s escape rooms you’re after, Escape Hunt offers a number of exciting rooms where you’ll need your wits to plan your escape.
- Join the NarrowBoat Club and go out on excursions on the canals with groups of Home eders.
- Young Engineers Clubs with Stem Kids
- Pick Blackberries at the beautiful but slightly abandoned Festival Gardens. Beautiful pond and river linking up throughout the gardens, and a really cool oriental garden.
- At 138 metres tall St Johns Beacon is one of the most iconic sights of the Liverpudlian skyline. The views from 400 feet up are spectacular and you look out over the Wirral and on a good day all the way up the Lake District.
- River Festival Liverpool is held every year and is also referred to as The Tall Ships Festival.
- TATE Liverpool another art gallery and museum in Liverpool’s dock area.
- FROST BURGERS is a vegan burger joint that sells the most amazing food.
- If you have a soccer mad kid. Liverpool FC, Everton FC and Tranmere run regular soccer clubs for kids.
- The Liverpool Empire Theatre has new regular shows every few weeks and tickets are a patch on London show tickets.
- The Royal Albert Dock is a complex of dock buildings and warehouses. Designed and opened in 1846 they were the first structure in Britain to be built from cast iron, brick and stone, with no structural wood. Now the docks are the vibrant heart of liverpool’s historic waterfront and are picturesque and funky with loads going on.
- The Invisible Wind Factory is an event space that offers everything from Yoga Brunches to weddings.
- For older children, there is a Comedy Club with pre-show (vegan) meal deals.
- Visit the 19th century Wavertree Botanic Gardens which feature walled gardens and a play area.
- Visit Liverpool’s one and only dry bar that is family friendly and welcoming to everyone. Set up by Action for Addiction, The Brink is a recovery social enterprise, which means that all profits go directly back into the community to fund support for those who have suffered through alcoholism and addiction. They also support local bands and have a vegan option menu.
- ST George’s Hall is an enormous hall used for lots of festivals and events in Liverpool. If you’ve ever wanted to see the behind the scenes places not usually open to the public you can join a Footman Tour. The Hall’s time-travelling footmen, dressed in Georgian costume who will lead the tour with stories about the development of the city dating back to the 1830’s.
- WWT Martin Mere wetland nature reserve
- Walk or Cycle The Wirral Way. 12 miles or 19km walk circular walk 37 miles
- Formby Red Squirrel Reserve. Large area of beach, sand dunes and pine woods which is part of the National Trust owned nature reserve.
- Southport Model Railway Village Model railway in a 1.5-acre miniature landscaped setting with countryside, a village & a town.
- Southport beach & pier with train visitsouthport.com pleasureland
- Chinese immigrants first arrived in Liverpool in the 1860’s and created strong trade links between the cities of Shanghai, Hong Kong and Liverpool. Liverpool’s ChinaTown is landmarked by a beautifully crafted arch to commemorate the twinning of Shanghai and Liverpool. The wooden and marble arch was imported piece by piece from Shanghai and there are 200 dragons on it. The archway stands at 15m high, which makes it the largest Chinese Arch outside China. Inside are a plethora of restaurants & shops.
- Visit Woo Tan Scran an entirely plant-based Chinese restaurant.
- Take music lessons at Pulse Music Liverpool
- Calderstones is a 94 acre park in South Liverpool boasting woodland, a lake, a Japanese garden and fields (and a one thousand-year old oak tree). Also home to the story barn for younger kids and in the summer an outdoor theatre.
- Sefton Park & its Palm House is another amazing park and also host to the summer festival Africa Oyé, which is in its 27th year of production.
- Create your own cycle tour by hiring a city bike. With membership available from £3 per day, £9 for a week or £60 for a year, there is something to suit everyone.
- A short distance from Liverpool is the Hover Force Adventure Activity Centre.
- The Pier Head was a railway station on the Liverpool Overhead Railway. Opened on 6 March 1893 by the Marquis of Salisbury, it was located close to the landing of the Mersey Ferry. Home to the Three Graces; the Royal Liver Building, The Cunard Building and the Port of Liverpool Building. The Pier Head itself forms part of Liverpool’s UNESCO World Heritage site and has many other famous attractions and landmarks to visit from The Beatles Statue that was erected in 2015, to the famous Mersey Ferry that docks in front of the Mersey Ferries Building.
- The Pier Masters House is an 1852 red-brick house staged with WWII-era interiors, open to the public for free visits.
- You can even go inside the Liver Building on a 360 tour of the clock tower.
- Whilst you’re there, make sure you visit Down The Hatch, a vegan & vegetarian fast food located in a basement setting.
- Stanley Park is a 110 acre park, designed by Edward Kemp and opened in 1870. It is the park that divides the two football teams of Liverpool FC & Everton FC. It includes the 1899 Gladstone Conservatory (restored and renamed the Isla Gladstone Conservatory).
- Watch the football at Anfield, Goodison or Tranmere. If you can’t get premiership tickets, why not check out the women’s teams?
- There are four Treasure Trails around Liverpool that are great for kids of all ages.
- Do you believe in ghosts and ghouls? Take one of Liverpools special Ghost Tours .
- Visit the Baltic Market every Thursday to Sunday at Cains brewery. Set in one of the warehouses of the old Cains Brewery in the Baltic Triangle, it’s the perfect addition to the up-and-coming trendy part of town that everyone wants a piece of.
- Crosby Beach & Fort Crosby also features shipwrecks at Formby, dinosaur footprints and iron statues of men, the art installation by Antony Gormley.
- The Plaza in Crosby community cinema was opened in 1939 and is currently being honoured by the BAFTAs. It is run entirely by volunteers and they run special showings for people with dementia and autism. The cinema has many of its original features and during the year they have creative workshops.
- Ainsdale discovery centre & Ainsdale beach. Visit the center for local information, educational outreach and free cycle loan. The Nature Reserve adjacent is one of the largest areas of wild dune left in Britain. You can take the Velvet Trail following the Green Beach from Weld Road southwards, then winding through the dunes back to Weld Road.
- The Old Hardware Shop is an entirely vegan cafe out in Woolton.
- Visit Baxendell’s Observatory & Southport’s Astronomical Society for talks on space and open days to see the observatory
- The Central Library of Liverpool is the most amazing library we’ve been in to. It also has free wifi, ipads and game consoles.
- Catch a ferry to Douglas in the Isle of Man.
- So we couldn’t write a listicle without including Awesome Walls Climbing. One of our favourite indoor activities.
- Airborne Academy. Kids & adults can learn aerial skills regardless of whether you’re a beginner or a pro.
- The Nakery sells colourful, super tasty, raw vegan cakes that are jaw droppingly beautiful.
- Fancy kayaking, stand up paddle boarding, wakeboarding or sailing in Liverpool? You can at Liverpool Watersports Centre
- Liverpool One is Liverpool’s largest mall. Check out what you can do here.
- Rampworx is an indoor skatepark that covers over 50,000-square-foot. It caters for rollerbladers, skateboarders, BMX riders and scooter riders.
- China Butterfly is a craft centre offering pottery painting, jewellery, papercrafts, potters wheel for all ages.
- Founded in 1977 Open Eye Gallery is an independent not-for-profit photography gallery. It is the only gallery dedicated to photography and related media in the North West of England.
- Create your own street art tour in Liverpool and take photos with wings and more.
- Goodness Gracious is a rooftop bar & restaurant that is open seasonally from March – October, weather permitting. It gives amazing views over Liverpool – if the weather plays ball.
- Support News From NoWhere, a radical independent bookshop, community space & workers’ cooperative selling radical books plus world, folk and roots music CDS and magazines. Underneath the shop is
- A radical social centre run by volunteers with an vegan-veggie kitchen space that is used for a non-profit cafe. There is a People’s Kitchen meal at 6.30pm every third Friday of the month and occasional food and film nights.
- If you’ve ever driven from Liverpool to Birkenhead, you’ll have crossed underneath the Mersey in a tunnel. Grab a Mersey Tunnel Tour and learn about its history and usage.
- If you need an indoor kids playcentre, head over to Yellow Sub
- Visit Newsham Park, a Victorian-era park founded in 1868, featuring landmark buildings, a lake with fish & a playground. There’s also a skateboard park and a nice cafe.
- Echo Arena has a large number of shows, tours and screenings from Disney on Ice to Killer Queen!
- Area 51 is a futuristic smoke-filled labyrinth where anyone, aged 7 & over, can join up to 36 players competing for victory.
- You can’t go to Liverpool and not go on the Mersey Ferry. There are regular boats over to Birkenhead & Wallasey and daily river explorer cruises of 50 minutes.
- Walk along the New Brighton Beach Promenade, visit the beach and Fort Perch Rock; a fort-turned-museum which offers various exhibitions & scenic river views.
- Whilst you’re there, don’t forget to visit the New Brighton Lighthouse. A decommissioned lighthouse which offers amazing photos whatever time of the year.
- Did you know that New Brighton has Secret WW2 Tunnels? You must book a tour to be taken down here though.
- The Black Pearl is an interactive art exhibit on the beach of New Brighton. Created by local pirates, enjoyed by everyone!
- Vale Park is a historic Victorian park in New Brighton. It features formal gardens, a rose garden, and a bandstand. The park opened in 1899 and has hosted weekly brass band concerts through the summer months since the day the park opened.
- The U-Boat Story is in Birkenhead and is a museum featuring interactive & audio-visual exhibits on a WWII German U-boat displayed on site.
- Consisting of 100 acres of heath and woodland, Bidston Hill contains historic buildings and ancient rock carvings.
- Built in 1763 Leasowe Lighthouse is located on Leasowe Beach. The lighthouse was built by The Mersey Docks and Harbour Company to guide shipping safely to the Port of Liverpool and is the oldest lighthouse built from bricks in the United Kingdom.
- King’s Gap Nature Reserve & Beach is a long expanse of sand at low tide and has a reputation for being one of the best locations to watch the sunset. When the tide is coming in it’s a good place to spot wading birds such as Redshank and Oystercatchers.
- One of the most scenic walks on the Wirral is from Red Rocks, Hoylake to West Kirby Beach. From here you can see uncommon bird species and seals and take a stroll out to the three tidal islands. Since the foundation of the Hilbre Island Bird Observatory in 1957, birds migrate to the Local Nature Reserves twice per year.
- The Europa Pool Leisure Centre offers two pools, along with a steam room, sauna and spa pool. There is a six lane, 25m competition pool, along with a leisure pool featuring a wave machine, water jets and a spiral water flume.
- Wirral Transport Museum & Heritage Tramway At certain times of the year a vintage tram service links the museum and the ferry. Check the website for details
- Birkenhead Park was the inspiration behind the design for New York’s Central Park. Frederick Law Olmsted, an American landscape architect, was so impressed with Birkenhead Park – which he called “a model town” – that he and Calvert Voux entered and won a competition to design Central Park based on Birkenhead Park. It features a romantic Swiss Bridge, a beautiful country landscape and a superb glass pavilion with a café.
- Lose the kids at the Brimstage Maze.
- Try your hand at glass blowing at The World of Glass in St Helens.
- Book cookery classes with Nikki. She offers one-off classes to 12 week courses and she’s Duke of Edinburgh registered too.
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22 Homeschooling Classes You Can Join In Liverpool
These twenty-two classes are a regular feature on homeschoolers agendas in Liverpool. Join this events group (different to the one listed above) if you’re interested in learning more.
- Mondays: Drama & Spanish
- Tuesdays: French & play at GAP
- Wednesday: Gymnastics, multisports, just play, Little World Warriors & yoga
- Thursday: Trampolining, politics & sociology, street dance, teen sports, Spanish, Little Sandbox, horse-riding, storytime.
- Friday: Ice skating, history club, science lab, nature group & reading club.
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