Non-Toy Easter Basket Ideas for Kids

Easter is less than two weeks away and our family is already getting excited! We’ll be celebrating in Sarasota with Ryan’s mom and Les this year and are counting down the days until we’ll be reunited in the Sunshine State! I’m also over here trying to figure out what Easter will look like for our boys since we’ll be flying to Florida and I don’t know exactly what I want to pack to then have to re-pack and bring back home with us. Maybe we’ll do mini Easter baskets here first but save the Easter bunny + egg hunt fun for Easter morning? I’m not sure but clearly Easter and Easter baskets are at the forefront of my mind right now.

When it comes to Easter in our house, I love using the holiday as a way to gift our boys some things they’ll actually use as the timing of Easter is wonderful since it’s right on the cusp of summer. This makes Easter ideal for summer-related gifting and when gifts double as things that are actually useful for our boys, I’m all about it! In case you happen to be in the same boat and are on the lookout for some non-toy Easter basket ideas for kids, I wanted to share a blog post with you guys today with a few of our family’s favorites.

The Easter basket ideas in this post are all items our boys genuinely use and enjoy! While I’m certainly not encouraging a no-toy Easter for anyone out there, if you’re hoping to include some Easter gifts in a little one’s Easter basket this year that are on the slightly more practical and useable side versus another plastic toy, I hope this blog post will give you an idea or two! I also tried to round up as many of these gift ideas as possible in one spot in my Easter Basket Ideas Amazon shop for easy browsing.

And in case you’d like a few more Easter basket ideas (including some toys and more fun finds), you may want to check out this post I shared a few years ago: Easter Gift Ideas for Kids

Non-Toy Easter Basket Ideas for Kids

• Swimming Essentials (Swim Goggles, Swimsuit, Kid-Size Towel, Life Jacket, etc.)

The timing of Easter is perfect for gifting summer essentials because it falls right before the h-o-t days of summer are officially upon us. Adding something kids can use at the pool or beach to their Easter baskets is a great way to get everyone a little more excited for summertime swimming!

A few ideas: A new pair of swim goggles (our boys love Aqua Sphere goggles because they’re comfortable and do not leak), a new swimsuit (these are great if you like above-the-knee trunks for boys and these are my absolute favorite retro-looking trunks for toddlers that are not the least bit baggy), Pottery Barn kid-size beach towels (basically the only towels we take to the pool because they’re not too bulky), bright-colored rash guard (our favorite for always being able to spot our kids at the pool and beach), HyperLite Life Jacket (our absolute favorite for the boys because they are slimmer, more comfortable and don’t ride up). And, yes, these would likely fall under the “toy” category, but these reusable water balloons were a huge hit all summer long with our boys last year.

• Butterfly Kit

If your kids are into butterflies, I cannot recommend a butterfly kit enough, as it allows little ones to watch caterpillars crawl around for a few days before they make their chrysalis and turn into beautiful butterflies. Everything happens relatively quickly so it holds the interest of younger kids, too. This has been a hit with every single one of our boys and we’ve loved the experience so much that we’ve done it a few times! One important note: The butterfly kit comes with a code you can use to order your caterpillars but you need to do that separately so if you’re hoping to have caterpillars on hand on Easter morning, you’ll want to order this one very soon!

• Art Supplies

Holidays are my favorite time to replace or revamp our boys’ art supplies and we’ve had some great finds over the years. A few notables: Crayola Clicks Retractable Markers (cap-free markers perfect for kids who are always losing marker caps), Crayola Twistable Crayons (wonderful for kids who hate it when crayon tips wear down), Kwik Stix Tempura Washable Paint Sticks (the best for making posters and for giving kids the look and feel of paint without the mess), Crayola Color Wonder (lets kids color and paint mess-free on special paper — a fav of ours for travel), Big Picture Coloring Books (especially great for younger kids; I ordered this Easter-themed big picture coloring book! And don’t forget about the Dollar Store — it’s a great option for inexpensive coloring books and activity books!), PipSqueaks Marker Tower (great for little hands and makes all marker colors easily visible)

• Outdoor Adventure Finds: Creature Cage, Catch-and-Release Aquarium, Nets, Fishing Rod

The number of creature cages and little nets we’ve had over the years is through the roof. Our kids use these things like crazy in the warmer months of the year to catch everything from lizards and bugs to frogs and even crabs at the beach! Some of our favorites: Catch and Release Aquarium (the best for beach days — our boys love it for catching crabs, little fish, sand fleas and more), Zebco Kid Fishing Rod (the rod all of our kids first used to learn to cast),  Colorful Nets (these fold up nice and small and a great to throw in the car or the bottom of a stroller), Kid Fishing Net (a sturdier net, better for bigger kids who get really into creature-catching), Portable Terrarium (our boys have used this to catch and release everything from lizards and turtles to tadpoles, fish, small snakes, bugs and more)

• Bath Bombs / Bath Color Tablets

I cannot tell you the love I have for bath bombs and bath color tablets when it comes to gifting for our boys. Why? Because they LOVE them and I LOVE that they disappear! A mother’s dream. They also make bath bomb kits and our boys have thoroughly enjoyed creating their own bath bombs in the past, too! For any extra fun surprise, consider the surprise-inside bath bombs. Our boys flip for them because each bath bomb has a little hidden toy/treasure inside and they think that’s basically the coolest thing on the planet. And these rainbow bath bombs blew their minds, too!

• Books

You guys know we love books so much in our house and we love adding to our boys’ book collections by including a new book in their Easter baskets. A few favorite books we’ve read again and again: Clap Your Hands (If you have a toddler, get this book! They will have the best time acting it out!), The Circus Ship (10/10 recommendation for everyone from preschoolers to early elementary school kids), Elephant and Piggie (these stories crack all three of our boys up), Magic Tree House (Chase and Ryder’s first foray into chapter books), Owl Diaries (the sweetest chapter book series for younger kids with lots of pictures and conversation bubbles), Dragon Masters (another great chapter book series for dragon lovers), Percy Jackson (our 8-year-old’s current obsession)

• Colgate Hum Smart Toothbrush

Okay hear me out on this one! If your kids aren’t the best at brushing their teeth or could use a little help extending their brush time or the accuracy of their brushing, the Colgate Hum Smart Toothbrush is a gem of a find. The toothbrush connects to an app on your phone that guides kids through brushing their teeth and truly gets them excited to brush their teeth every night. We bought this for our big kids (ages 5 and 8) last fall and they’re still all-in on it! They love earning little prizes within the app, getting credit for multi-day “streaks,” etc. Anything that makes brushing teeth fun for our kids is a win in my book!

• New Water Bottle + Silicone Water Bottle Name Band

This is one of those little things I’ll throw into the boys’ Easter baskets if they need a new water bottle because it’s a practical gift that always gets used. One thing that makes a new water bottle feel a little less boring to a kid is something to make it personal, whether you include fun vinyl water bottle stickers they can use to decorate their water bottle or a personalized silicone name band to help them pick out their water bottle in the vast sea of kid water bottles at school, sports, activities, etc.

• Bird Feeder

I realize this may not be a thrill for all kids but if you have an animal or bird-lover on your hands, a bird feeder may be an Easter basket surprise they would love! Our boys truly get the biggest kick out of our bird feeders and even make charts to keep track of what kinds of birds they see outside nibbling on the various seeds. There are so many different kinds of bird feeders out there but we’ve had good luck with our squirrel-proof bird feeder, this window-cling bird feeder and our hummingbird feeder.

• Food/Snack/Kitchen Finds

This is a bit of a catch-all category for gifting food-related gifts! For the kids who love to “help” in the kitchen, a set of kid knives might be a fun thing to include in an Easter basket. Our boys continue to use them regularly to help cut soft foods like strawberries, watermelon, toast, etc. If you have a toddler in your house, I cannot recommend a Kitchen Helper Stand enough. (Yes, this is much too big for an Easter basket, but I promise it will be a hit!) When our boys were younger, they used our Guidecraft tower every single day so they could stand at the kitchen counter with us and be a part of the action.

When it comes to snack time, we’ve had some fun finds that have made snacking on the go a little easier and a little more interesting for the boys. This rotating snack tray is a big hit for toddlers and it is still something I use for Rhett (age 3) to coerce him into strollers walks to help hold his attention. We also swear by PackIt Soft Freezable Pouches for keeping snacks cold when we’re on the go. We truly use one every single day to bring snacks like yogurt pouches, string cheese, bell pepper slices and grapes with us so we can have easy access to cold snacks. (This is the smaller size Chase takes to school for is morning snack.) The whole pouch simply goes in the freezer when you’re done using it to re-freeze until the next time you’re ready to use it. Also, I realize these snack time finds may not be super exciting to kids on their own in an Easter basket, so filling them with some of their favorite snacks or Easter candy might make them a little more exciting!

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Question of the Day

Do you have any other non-toy gift ideas for kids that have been a big hit with your little ones? Please share!