14 Best Activity Centres In County Durham

You choose a blank piece, sit at a table and paint it, then hand it back at the end. Firing happens after you have gone home, so the finished thing is collected on a later visit rather than carried out under an arm. Tell children that before you arrive, because a four-year-old expecting to take a painted dinosaur straight home does not take the news well at the counter.

The run-about places manage it most reliably. The Hullabaloo and Dragonflies Durham let a child set their own pace and stop when they are tired rather than when an activity ends. A painting session is shorter by nature: the piece is done when it is done, and for a small child who has lost interest that can be forty minutes. Summerhill carries indoor and outdoor flags, so there is a second half to the visit when the first one runs dry.

Teesside White Water Centre is the entry for them, flagged outdoor rather than indoor, and it plays by a different set of rules from everything else here. Anything on water will have age, height or weight minimums and will want you booked ahead, so this is a trip you arrange, not one you decide on over breakfast. For a teenager past the age of soft play but not ready for a river, a craft studio fits better than it sounds.

Old clothes or a spare top for anywhere involving paint, since aprons cover the middle of a child and nothing else. Grip socks for the indoor play sites, because bare feet are usually not allowed and ordinary socks slide. A water bottle, as a hall full of children is hot work. And if there is fired pottery to collect later, write the collection day down somewhere you will actually look.