20+ Affordable Easter Basket Ideas for Kids
Easter always feels like it comes up so fast!
One minute you’re thinking about Valentine’s Day and then half a second later, you’re hunting for Easter Basket ideas!
We don’t go crazy with Easter baskets, but it’s fun to have a small gift or two or something useful for the approaching summer!
I’ve collected 15 of my favorite Easter Basket ideas and I hope they’re helpful for you and your family!
15 Easter Basket Ideas for Kids
Colored Pencils
An Easter basket is the perfect place to refresh your child’s art supplies. These colored pencils are a favorite at our house – look at how good the reviews are! – and get used for all kinds of projects (my 13 year old loves using them with this art book!)
A Library Bag
If you have young library lovers, this is THE best library bag I’ve ever used (I’ve had mine for years and it still looks basically brand-new despite carrying a bazillion library books to and from the library). They come in so many fun patterns and are really affordable. (I wrote a whole post about how much I love these bags here).
A Drawing Book
These drawing books have been popular at our house for years and these mini versions are extra cute and fun for Easter baskets, plus perfect for taking on a road trip. Want more drawing book ideas? Some of our favorite drawing books are listed here.
A Small Game
Is an Easter basket where you want to tuck in a giant Monopoly box? Probably not. But Gnoming A Round, Sleeping Queens, Set, The Bears and the Bees, Cover Your Assets, Nuts about Mutts, or Dutch Blitz are all the perfect size and great for multiple ages.
Bath Dropz
Regardless of a child’s age, these are a hit every single time! They’re less than $4 and the container has 60 tablets that turn your bath water vibrant colors, but somehow don’t stain your tub or your skin. I don’t understand the magic, but I’m here for it.
Mosaic Foam Sticker Art Kits
My mom bought some of these for my girls a few years ago and they were CRAZY popular at our house. Divide these up among a couple of kids and keep them all happy for hours!
Paint by Sticker books
My children are OBSESSED with these and we’ve been doing them non-stop for a few years now. If your kids are younger, go with the kid versions (my youngest could do them independently at 3 years old). If they’re older, the adult versions are much more details and will keep them occupied for a lot longer. My 11 and 13 year olds FAR prefer the adult versions.
Swimsuits
I know MANY families give their kids swimsuits in their Easter baskets to prepare for the summer ahead (when we took a trip to St. George a few weeks ago, it was clear that our kids were in need of some new swimsuits for this summer too!). Lots of cute and affordable options here!
Spy Pens
We gave these to my girls a few years ago – they come in a pack of 12 for $12, so split them up among multiple kids if you want (I never let packaging be the boss of me!) – and my girls LOVED writing each other invisible notes and then using the light on the pen cap to read the note.
Hair Claws
I love the hair claw trend and my girls are super into them too. I bought this pack of 8 for $10 for my girls for Christmas and they’re super great (and again. . . don’t let the packaging be the boss. You can divide them up if you have multiple children).
Indestructibles book
These books are one of my favorite things to give as gifts for babies – they’re virtually indestructible! You can even run them through the washing machine and they’ll be just fine. Plus, they have so many options and have such fun illustrations that my girls have loved looking at. And for under $6, it’s a smoking deal on a book.
Water beads
I don’t know why these are so fun, but they just really truly are. I can’t stop playing with them either! This is a MASSIVE pack for $8 that will last you a long long time.
Book Light
I was dubious about this light before I tried it and now I can’t go back to a clip light. These are amazing regardless of what position you are reading in. Add a book and you’re in business for a great Easter basket gift.
Shape Shifting Box
Ani got this for her birthday this year and it was definitely one of the more popular gifts she received. All of my girls have played with it non-stop and it’s like a grown-up fidget toy! (It was SO popular that Ani gave Tally one for her birthday last month!).
Create This Book
My 13-year old requested this for Christmas and she has absolutely loved it! 21,000 five star reviews says pretty much everything you need to know. Shs has spent hours and hours using the prompts on each page to use her imagination and creativity to no end.
Shell Collecting Beach Bag
Going to the beach is so much fun and part of the fun is collecting all of the cool things you find! I love how they are made of mesh, so no more bringing home giant blobs of sand. These would be great to split up into Easter baskets if you are heading on a beach vacation soon!
Fun Bandaids
Growing up, we almost never had bandaids around, and as an adult it seems like such a luxury to not only have a big supply but to have FUN ones. These are SO MUCH FUN, and bandaids will always get used. There are also tons of other designs and colors for $6.99 for a large box.
Cute Sticky Notes
My girls love stuff like this! They are so cute for labeling things, leaving little notes for each other or even using as a bookmark!
Popsicle Sleeves
We love a good Otter Pop around here and typically wrap them in a paper towel. These fun sleeves would get rid of that extra step and I could just leave them in the Otter Pop box when finished! Perfect for summer!
Mini Flashlights
Flashlights are one of those things you can’t really own too many of – it’s handy to have them in your car, your bedside table or desk drawer! This mini one is ultra-portable and super affordable.
Gem Art Poster
This delightful kit will last for hours. My girls love diamond painting and I love that they are mess-free. Here is another fun option for $5.00!
Letter Sticker Notebook
This sticker book is all letters for writing messages, notes, journal headings and so much more. Tons of differents letters and designs to choose from, it keeps hands busy! It would be fun to use this to pass notes back and forth in the car or on an airplane! My seven year old has especially loved this one!
Mini Lego Sets (Super Mario, Moana, Harry Potter, Race Car, Minecraft, Marvel)
These mini LEGO sets are perfect for kids, teens, or adults who have never grown out of loving LEGO. I won’t lie, they are the cutest things I’ve ever seen – I’m not even a LEGO person and I wouldn’t hate to receive one as a gift.
I’d love to hear what kinds of things you put in your child’s Easter basket! Let me know in the comments.
Ordered the spy pens. Thanks for the idea!
Your blog is the best! Thanks for the great ideas as always.
Thanks for ideas! My boys have loved the spy pens but I didn’t think to get some more so my other two That can write can have them as well now. Besides the normal bubbles and chalk for our littlest ones (because we are out!) some things I got are a new springtime pair of pjs from plain Jane four the four younger ones. I love how soft they are and they all coordinate so they still will kind of looked dressed if they stay in their jammies later over these next weeks while we are home more. Ellie Holcomb CD for kids, and one of her picture books for each of my littles. Love them! A small water color journal for using as a gratitude journal for all the silver lining blessings that we can find because of the pandemic. I hope do have a 15 minute chunk of time set aside each day for them to draw a picture or print one and journal something we did as a family we otherwise wouldn’t have. Check out Kristin Rogers or Wild and Free. Her idea! A painting rock art book and some rock paint pens. Some new BIC markers that have the caps attached in a little case so they can’t be lost (from amazon). Then also a few of the things you have mentioned (water beads, card games, and art books). We have 6 children so baskets are small but I tried to pick some different things so they can share. Some years we’ve done just a larger family basket and that’s been fun too. Ever since my 13 year old’s first Easter I’ve wrapped their baskets in purple cellphone (because it reminds us Jesus is King). My mom did that when I was little and I’ve loved keeping the tradition.
I think I saw on Insta something about a hard scavenger hunt for baskets when you were a kid! I really want to do this, but have no idea where to start or how it actually works! Can you break it down for me?Maybe some sample clues? Thank you!
Hi Sara, we didn’t do scavenger hunts for baskets when I was growing up, but we did have one at Christmas – you can see a post about it here: https://everyday-reading.com/christmas-treasure-hunt/
I bought glass markers (think markers for windows) at the start of the pandemic. It was well worth the money! EVERY age loves it. They clean up easy too. I bet they would go over well in an Easter basket.
I loved the vibrant colors of these ones (they practically glow in the dark too!!!):
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B07Q4K1HRJ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_image?ie=UTF8&psc=1