Last week we were invited to the stunning Cutty Sark Ship in Greewich.

We’ve been many times with our 6 year old Son. It’s truly one of the best attractions in London.

However last week we went to try a new activity for the little ones. Toddler Time!

Running on Wednesdays in term time from 10-11.30am and 1.20-2.50pm just for under 4s!

Toddler Time is an experience for the younger children where they take a little journey round the world and it was really quite magical…

Location

The weekly event takes place on the Lower Deck which means you are sitting under the ship! If you don’t know why this is significant take a look at the beautiful view you have of the gold hull and skylights as you’re learning.

It’s really an inspiring spot. My daughter’s face when we arrived and she saw where the toys and mats were laid out says it all!

Crafts

As you sit down on the sweet rug with a map of the world; you’re told which country you will be visiting that week.

We were to travel to China, one of the places the Cutty Sark sailed to. So the first thing we did was to make our own Chinese lanterns, otherwise how would we see where we were going?

The children all loved that there were various materials, coloured card, shiny, scrunchy, noisy paper and cellophane to serve as the fire inside their lanterns.

There was also an area for babies with blankets, sheer, colourful soft fabrics and crinkly paper for them to experience.

Story time

Once we had our lanterns we could be off on our journey!

We were asked to spin our hands around and close our eyes as we traveled to the world of make believe.

Our very enthusiastic story teller explained all about China, about dragons and noodles! How red is a symbol of good luck and much more.

Then we all took on the roles of different types of dragons. Some stompy, some roaring! We were each given a sheer colourful fabric to swoosh as we roared and stomped! This went down well as you can imagine!

We learnt about different buildings you find in China, big and small and tried to make our selves the same size.

When the story was over we span our hands again, opened and closed our eyes to bring ourselves back from make believe.

Free play

After all that focused activity, lots of toys, puzzles and little soft toy animals were brought out to play. The children were then free to run around and explore all the items as they wished.

It’s also a great spot to see other parts of the ship as here you’ll find the world’s largest collections of figure heads, the incredible carved characters you find on the bow.

Where to eat

If you need somewhere to feed the little explorers before or after the event, there is a lovely cafe super close to Toddler Time. It’s on the Lower Deck as well and very easy to find.

It has little sandwich bags, cakes, coffee and everything you might need to save you one task for the day!

What do the Toddlers think?

We would definitely go back again. It was a very calm, relaxing space. They all actually learnt something. It wasn’t one of those days at the soft play where you are just trying to get them to expend energy!

Most importantly I think it really fires their imagination. My daughter loved it and our exchange afterwards went like this: