Going down the road to ‘Little Street’.

My review on this fabulous children’s role play centre in Surrey.

Dear mummy, the weather’s been miserable recently and our long walks in the countryside have been put on hold. All the puddle jumping I’ve been doing recently has been on footpaths and in car parks visiting soft play centres ranging from Gambado, in Eastleigh and Active Tots in Bramley.

However today we’ve decided to go further afield to a little known place called Little Street. It’s says exactly what it does on the sign…it’s a little street for children. We hunt it down at Frimley Train Station just off the M3 near Camberley. Parking is good and mummy drives into the train station car park which charges £1 on weekdays, free at weekends. We’ve known about Little Street since it opened back in June this year, but have needed a good excuse to pop down and this wet and windy day is the perfect reason to go and explore this new type of children’s play center.

Little Street is a realistic street designed for role play, to help little ones to reenact scenarios in the everyday world helping them to learn through play and is great fun. My mummy knows I love role play and Little Street is a scaled down version of a typical high street with a supermarket, doctors surgery, beauty salon, a cafe and a construction site. My favourite area has to be the large dressing up box and stage with musical instruments called Starlets Theatre. I spend a lot of time dancing on the stage, while mummy and grandma sing and play on musical instruments. Another area I like is the large round-about with a fire engine in the middle…I do like to climb at the moment so I spend a great deal of time on this large wooden vehicle. There are murals and artwork on the walls with a post office, police station and fire station.

Little street operates an online booking system which allows parents to pre-book a particular session of the day. Child (Includes free entry for 1 adult) – £5.50 / £6.00 and Additional Adult – £3.50 / £3.75. We went off-peak on a Monday. They have 4 daily play sessions and are open 7 days a week! We choose the 13:30 to 15:00 session and even though it was busy, it wasn’t heaving. Adults do tend to get in the way, especially if they are nattering to other parents standing in the middle of the hair salon (True to form eh?), the best thing to do is to get down on the floor and engage/play with your little ones (if they haven’t already found a friend to play with) all children must be supervised by a responsible adult/guardian at all times, so keeping a beady little eye on them is recommended. My mummy and grandma sat in a corner to let me get on and do my thang.

Little Street also has a cafe which serves hot and cold drinks, snacks and gorgeous cakes! The staff are friendly and helpful. We spoke to another parent and they had mentioned that Little Street can get very busy on school holidays, so it is always worth booking online to check availability of time slots. You can just walk-in, but you may be disappointed, so always check their website first. Little Street also do parties, which is a great idea and maybe a thought for the future *hint hint mummy*

Would we go back? Yes, but not until I’ve stopped my climbing stage, as I wanted to climb up on everything…the shelves in the supermarket, the scales in the doctor’s surgery, the walls in the construction yard….the list goes on and it was a bit hairy for my mummy to keep an eye on me all the time. I wasn’t taken with Belle & Beau beauty salon area, however I might grow into this. Definitely a play centre to keep an eye on for a rainy day. Early Years Practitioners have helped design Little Street and they have incorporated other learning opportunities for children throughout the play areas, puzzles, languages, shape sorters and challenges. Little Street is most appealing to children from walking age to 7 years… or any adults that like role play… as my mummy found out pretending to be a police officer!

If you suffer from tidiness OCD, it might be worth relaxing your reins for a little while, as my mummy trailed after me putting prop cartons and boxes back onto shelves and turning them facing outwards, a bit like that strange creepy man from ‘Sleeping With The Enemie” However the place is immaculate and clean, you could eat your dinner off the floor it sparkled so much, so well done Little Street staff for keeping the play area beautiful.

It is truly an unique and inspirational play centre for young children and we would recommend taking your little ones down there for a couple of hours of play. You couldn’t spend the whole day down there, but with Frimley High Street (yes the adult version) on it’s doorstep with shops and cafes you could fill your day up visiting Frimley or Camberley.

We had a fab time and hope other families enjoy their time down there as much as we did. Shame the 90 min play session didn’t last longer…

Until next time Little Street!

Bella x