Your kids probably love a good Easter egg hunt as much as mine do. Through the years, we’ve come up with fun non candy Easter egg filler ideas that are a lot more exciting than just filling the eggs with jelly beans (because how many jelly beans can a kid really eat?)
These fun swaps have even inspired some of our favorite Easter party ideas that keep the celebration fun and functional.
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And if you’re you’re playing hostess to a bunch of sugar-happy little guests, I totally get the concern about dye and food allergies.
No worriesβthere are plenty of non-candy Easter egg stuffers that are safe, fun, and perfect for kids of all ages.
Honestly, weβve ditched the candy altogether in both Easter baskets and egg stuffers. Now our plastic eggs are packed with goodies that actually get used or scavenger hunt clues that leads to a bigger prize.
You can say goodbye to sugar overload on Easter!
1- Puzzle Pieces From One Single Bigger Puzzle
Here’s one of my favorite fun Easter ideas that we came up with.
I honestly don’t remember how we came up with this Easter egg filler idea, but one year I bought a puzzle at the dollar store and tucked a few piecesβtwo or three at a timeβ into plastic eggs.
It turned out to be the perfect Easter egg filler. You end up needing lots of eggs, so it stretches the hunt (and the fun!) without loading everyone up with candy.
If youβre planning to include a puzzle in your Easter activities, make sure to have plenty of plastic eggs on handβtrust me, those pieces add up fast.
A couple of jumbo plastic eggs are also great for stashing larger chunks.
The girls had an absolute blast collecting all the puzzle pieces and then working together to put it all together after the hunt.
This was so successful we now do it every year and it makes for a fantastic Easter Sunday activity for the kids.
And when youβve got a big family, itβs extra fun watching everyone team up to finish the puzzle instead of just comparing who got the most candy.
Although thereβs always that moment when a piece is missingβ¦ cue the second round of frantic egg hunting!
Itβs a great way to keep the egg hunt exciting and a little less competitiveβsince they need to pool their finds to finish the final picture
Each year, we up the challenge with a slightly harder puzzle as the girls get olderβand honestly, itβs such a hit that even the βtoo cool for an egg huntβ tweens and teens want in.
Because reallyβ¦ no oneβs too old for a good puzzle.
Want to take it up a notch? You can even double the fun by using a black and white puzzle they can color afterward.
Following the same idea, swap the puzzle with a small Lego set and break it up between several eggs (see idea #5).
2- Fill Eggs with Coupons for Fun Things in the Future
Kids love to receive good coupons, and in our house with big kids, they’re a huge hit on Easter morning.
There are tons of fun Easter egg coupons floating around online, and I even designed my own free printable Easter Egg Coupons that are super easy to customize.
That way you’re not stuck with only what I think makes a good coupon but you can write in whatever your child will love most.
Now, Iβll be honestβmy kids donβt always redeem every homemade coupon, but they still get ridiculously excited when they find them in their eggs.
Itβs such a fun way to fill those eggs with something other than sugar bombs.
These days, I try to make the coupons a little more instant-gratification friendly.
For example, Iβll secretly grab their favorite ice cream ahead of time and pop in a coupon that says, βRedeem for a bowl of ice cream after the egg hunt.β Total win.
You can also get creative and make the coupons time-specificβsomething like, βPick the movie for Saturday night,β or βStay up 30 minutes later on Friday.β
If you want to make sure certain coupons go to specific kids, just grab a Sharpie and write their name on the egg.
Or color-code your eggs so everyone knows which ones are theirsβeasy peasy and no squabbling over who gets what.
3- The Best Non-Candy Easter Egg filler: Money, Money, Money!
Yep, we toss coins into some of the eggs too. Itβs the perfect excuse to finally put that half-pound of loose change rattling around in the bottom of your purse to good use.
We usually stick with quarters and dimes, but every now and then, a lucky egg will have a surprise paper bill insideβinstant jackpot!
As the kids got older, we leveled it up with a little Easter twist: one golden egg per child. We write their name on it with a Sharpie and tuck in a couple of larger bills.
Nothing wildβjust enough to make the hunt a little more exciting (and keep the teens fully invested in egg-hunting tradition).
These days, those golden eggs are the main event.
The teens go full detective mode trying to find theirsβand honestly, itβs hilarious to watch.
4- Resurrection Eggs to Teach the Easter Story
If you want to teach your kids that Easter is about more than eggs and bunnies, getting a set of resurrection eggs is a great Easter egg filler idea.
Each egg contains an object representing a different part of the Biblical story of Easter.
Each Egg is numbered so the story goes in order. Resurrection egg sets also come with a list of Bible verses to read in order as you open each egg.
You can easily buy a set of these Christian Easter egg fillers online or you can make your own with these instructions and free printables from Life Your Way.
5- Small Toys and Useful Objects Easter Egg Filler Ideas
This category can get dangerously close to βrandom junk,β so try to focus on things your child will actually use or genuinely enjoy.
Itβs totally fine to take a bigger itemβlike a small LEGO setβand split it up between several eggs, just like we did with the puzzle pieces.
Iβll admit, itβs sometimes easier to find fun Easter egg fillers for little girls (hello, hair clips and nail stickers!), but donβt worryβthereβs still plenty out there for boys and kids of all ages.
Think Hot Wheels, toy animals, sticky handsβbasically anything tiny and fun that fits in an egg is fair game.
Hereβs a list of non-candy Easter egg fillers to get your creativity going:
- Small toy figurines
- Parachute men
- Slime
- Kinetic sand
- Lip balm
- Small nail polish
- Nail stickers
- Fun erasers
- Pencil toppers
- Finger puppets
- Balloons
- Water Balloons
- Hair Clips, hair bows, and hair ties
- Marbles
- Legos
- Bracelets/Necklaces or friendships bracelets
- Rings
- Stickers
- Playdoh
- Earrings
- Temporary tattoos
- Craft Items
- Small squishes
- Keyrings
- Bouncy balls
- Mini bubbles
- Washi tape
- Mini flashlight
- Silly putty
- Bath bombs
- Seed packets
- Small sewing kit
- Mini plushies
- Foam modeling clay
- Stress balls
Youβd be amazed how much fun kids have with the tiniest surprises. Just think small, fun, and usefulβand your eggs will be filled with excitement (without a sugar crash in sight).
Finally, here’s a fun ice cream-themed Easter basket filled with fun toys, plushies, and Easter goodies that I styled with items from Oriental Trading and my editable Easter Coupons.
And I hope I’ve encouraged you to think outside the box for your Easter egg hunt this year with these 5 Easter egg filler ideas!
More Easter Egg Hunt ideas:
Don’t stop here. These extra ideas will pack in more fun, more surprises, and keep the Easter excitement going from start to finish.
π΅οΈββοΈ Easter Egg Scavenger Hunt Ideas β A full list of creative and clever clue ideas to level up your hunt.
π£ Easter Bunny Footprints β Printable bunny tracks that add a dash of mystery and delight to your hunt.
π¨ Coloring Easter Eggs Ideas β Fun and unique ways to decorate eggs that go beyond your basic dye kit.
π Printable Bunny Letters & Notes β Add a personal touch from the bunny himself with these adorable printables.
π° Easter Bunnies Coloring Pages β Cute bunny-themed coloring sheets that kids will love to decorate.
and much much more.
Don’t forget to pin these non candy Easter egg filler ideas:
Such great ideas here! This year we added a some fun to our Easter hunt. We put numbers in different eggs so that there ended up being 2 kids together in pairs. We added funny tasks they had to do together. For example the 2 kiddos who got the number 1βs had to wiggle their bunny tails for 7 seconds. Everyone thought it was so funny. Number 2βs had to sing a song.. and so on.
What a fun idea, you could totally use the free vouchers for that too. Thanks for sharing!
These ideas are fantastic! The vouchers are perfect given what we are going through at the moment!! Thanks for giving me so many ideas.