Stuff Their Easter Baskets with GOOD Stuff!

I don't know about your kids, but mine still have candy left over from Halloween and Valentine's Day hidden in their rooms. I like to keep Easter fairly low-key as far as the sweets go, because of all the leftovers that seem to hang around from other holidays.  Instead I like to fill their baskets with fun, learning toys!

So here are some ideas for you, if you'd like to stay away from the candy too.

1)  This year my kids are getting a Hexbug Nano with Bunny Ears!  They love Hexbugs!  And I definitely recommend them.  They are really cute little mini-robots.  You can get track for them to run around on, and the track comes in different shapes so you can build something different each time.  Is this really a learning toy?  Sure!  Especially when the kids build cooperatively and create interesting tracks and homes for their Hexbugs!  (Try Target or Toys R Us, if you want to get one of these.  Amazon's prices are erratic.)

2)  Yamodo is a pencil and paper game.  My kids love this!  Grandma J introduced them to a simpler version of this game, which they also love.  Everyone at the table gets a pen and paper.  Each person writes a little bit of a story in a given amount of time (say 1 minute).  Then all the papers pass to the left and everyone adds a bit to the story again.  When the papers have gone all the way around, each person reads out their completed story.  And they are always silly!  (And if you play with Jack, he will kill someone's character (probably Ginny's and she will cry!))  Anyhow, Yamodo is pretty much the same game, but with a nonsense word and a bit of a doodle.  Each person gets a Yamodo sheet, adds to the doodle and starts to write a definition of the nonsense word.  Pass the page, add to it, and continue.  The results at the end are always silly too!  The drawings can get REALLY insane!  (loads of lasers, poop, butterflies and flowers!)  You can buy different themed Yamodos at Amazon for just under $10.

3)  Dot to Dots are not just for little kids anymore!  Extreme Dot to Dots are awesome!  We have a couple of these books, and they are not always easy to complete.  The one shown above actually comes with stickers to use with each Dot to Dot.  That's too cool!  You can purchase these at Mindware for $10.

4)  This is a beautiful Easter Egg Tangram set.  I don't own one of these personally, and I think it might be a bit pricey for an Easter Basket, but it is lovely!  You can find this at Uncommon Goods for $30.

5)  Here's something for the little ones.  It's so cute!  Hide N Squeak Eggs will get your toddlers learning their shapes and colors and practicing some fine motor skills!  These are available at Amazon for $10.

6)  Blink is the world's fastest card game!  It's over before you can even...you guessed it...Blink!  My daughter LOVES this game.  Probably because she usually beats me.  In this game, you slap down cards as fast as you can.  You have to match color, shape, or number on the cards at the top of the discard piles.  First player out of cards wins!  Very simple, yet it does get kids thinking strategically about what order to play their cards to get the most played.  You can purchase this at Amazon for $10.  (Everything is $10 these days!)

7)  How about something a little messy?  The kids can learn some science while spraying soda all over the yard!  You can buy Geyser Tubes at Fat Brain Toys for $6.  Other ideas for science fun include a magnet set, a gyroscope, or a pocket microscope.  

8)  These Puzzleballs from Ravensburger are beautiful!  I definitely recommend a jigsaw puzzle of some sort for the Easter Baskets!  These Puzzlesballs require a steady hand to put together, so they would be best for older kids.  They cost $8 on Amazon.

9)  Mad Libs are always a laugh-riot!  Your kids will have fun creating crazy stories (watch out for the farts and ninjas!) and practice their grammar skills at the same time!  Mad Libs are usually under $5 and can be found at your local bookstore.

10.  Even though my kids are 10 and 12 this year, they still like to go on an Easter egg hunt.  We do dye eggs, but I don't like to hide those.  Can you imagine the smell of a real egg that was never found?  Anyhow, I usually fill these plastic ones with coins or legos.  I sometimes buy things at the dollar store to stuff in there, but most of that stuff usually gets lost in the back of the toy box and ignored, so I don't do that very often.  Lego collectable mini-figures would fit well inside the bigger eggs, but those do get pricey.  There are tons of free Easter-themed paper puzzles online that you could print off, fold up and hide in the eggs.  If you're crafty, Mr Printables has a ton of printable crafts that you could put together and stuff inside an egg.  He recently posted templates for paper fruit.  He also has instructions on making all sorts of pom-poms.  A paper strawberry or a tiger pom-pom inside an egg would be really cute!

I hope this helped you think of some ideas for GOOD stuff for your Easter Baskets!  Leave a comment if you've got some other great ideas to share!