Here’s a fun idea to get you in the mood for Easter courtesy of This Mama Loves Her Bargains!
I’m not anti-candy. Not at all. (Hey, look at my physique, there’s clearly been candy in my life on many occasions!). That said, I don’t
want to just fill a bunch of eggs with candy and let the kids have at it. Sure, I do some candy treats, but we’re big into the hunting of the eggs in this family and I try to think “outside the box” for fillers. Since Easter’s just around the corner, I thought I’d share a few of my suggestions to fill plastic eggs that are not candy!
Here are This Mama’s suggestions to put into eggs:
1. Stickers
2. Tatoos
3. Bouncy Balls
4. Bandaids (what kid doesn’t love character bandaids?)
5. Mini Erasers
6. Matchbox Cars
7. Whistle
8. Tubs of chapstick/lip gloss
9. Coins
10. Puzzle pieces
The puzzle pieces might be my favorite…and you can do it a few ways. You can just tuck a piece or 2 of a puzzle in a bunch of eggs and finish the puzzle together as a family after the hunt, OR, you can get a puzzle per kid, and they have to find THEIR puzzle pieces. This can be a lot of fun and you can make it more and more challenging depending how old your kids are! The last way you could use puzzle pieces is to have a “larger” prize-type item and get a picture of it- cut that picture into puzzle pieces and tuck each piece into an egg to be hunted for. (You will likely have to color code the eggs or “label” them per kid with some of these ideas!)
You can always buy different sized eggs, which would definitely allow for even more creativity in your hunts. Fruit snacks lend themselves nicely to being tucked into the medium sized eggs, as do pairs of kid socks, underwear and hair clips!
We love the egg hunt, we just have so much fun with it! Do you put things besides candy into your eggs? What kinds of things do you tuck into your eggs?
When I was growing up my mom always did a mix of candy, smaller toys (more like party favor toys), coins and hard boiled eggs.
With my kids I normally do mostly pennies and nickels and candy. But I LOVE the puzzle idea!! We do a big family easter egg hunt where the kids get a specific color that way the older kids we can hide harder and the younger easier. Each child gets a number in one egg or sometimes a specific sticker and wins a basket that way each kid get something. I think this year for the prizes we’re gonna make the easter baskets they win a sand pail and shovel stuffed with bubbles, a kite, tooth brush and tooth paste, and a few other summer toys probably character themed ones from Dollar Tree!! I’d love to hear more suggestions!!!
Boy are you organized! My mother-in-law does something a bit similar for all the grandkids. She does 1 large egg with each kids name on it and there will be money in it. She also color coordinates the eggs since my now 4 year old needs easier eggs to hunt than my 10 year old nephew.
I think more suggestions could make a great Thrifty thursday post next week, thanks
Love the puzzle idea!!
Me too!