Hands-on museums and science centres. Several of the best ones are free.
The spiral atrium is one of the most spectacular free interiors in the North West, the children's floor is genuinely brilliant, and the rooftop terrace looks across the city. Rainy-day Liverpool's best-kept non-secret, next door to World Museum.
Titanic and Lusitania told in the city that crewed them, ship models, and the Seized! customs gallery in the basement where kids hunt smugglers. Free, and the Albert Dock outside is its own event.
The city's story with an overhead railway carriage to climb aboard and Little Liverpool, a dedicated hands-on gallery for under-6s. Free, on the waterfront, and the window views are half the fun.
Free, grand, and far better with small children than a fine-art gallery has any right to be, thanks to Big Art for Little Artists, a whole gallery where they are supposed to touch things.
Five floors, free, and it covers three things small children reliably love: giant dinosaurs, an aquarium and a space gallery. The best wet-weather day within half an hour.
The self-guided tour takes you through the home dressing room, down the tunnel past the This Is Anfield sign and out pitchside, with the club museum included. For a football-mad child it is a pilgrimage. For anyone else it is £72 for a family walk round a stadium.
Wall-to-wall Beatles under the Albert Dock, with an audio guide narrated by John Lennon's sister and a hands-on Discovery Zone at weekends. Brilliant if your kids know the songs, a long ninety minutes if they don't.
Free, indoors and better than it sounds: interactive science aimed at younger children, glassblowing demos, a picnic area and a small playground outside.
Hands-on science galleries and a glass rooftop observatory over the Mersey. Small, cheap, indoors and close.
Working steam engines, the story of Cottonopolis, and hands-on galleries in the world's oldest surviving passenger railway station. Free, and the live demonstrations are the bit kids actually remember.
A T. rex skeleton cast, live frogs in the vivarium, Egyptian mummies and a genuinely good natural history floor. Free, university-run, and less overwhelming than the big London equivalents.
Shirts, trophies and match footage across six floors, with penalty shootout and skills games that football-mad kids refuse to leave. If yours do not care about football, skip it - it is exactly what it says.
War told through people's stories in a building designed to feel like a shattered globe. The hourly Big Picture Show projections fill the whole gallery and stop everyone mid-step. Heavy themes, handled well - better for the top end of primary.