Best Easter Gifts for Grandkids (Beyond the Candy Basket)

Easter is the small-gift holiday.

Unlike Christmas or birthdays — where your grandchild expects significant gifts — Easter is about sweet, thoughtful small things tucked into a basket. Your grandchild will remember which grandparent sent the chocolate bunny with the cool art kit. They won’t remember a pile of generic plastic eggs.

Here’s how to make an Easter gift actually land.

What makes an Easter gift work

Three things, in order of importance:

Scale it right. Easter is not a birthday. A $15-40 gift is appropriate; a $150 gift at Easter feels weird and sets confusing expectations. Fewer, better items beat a big basket of junk.

Mix candy with one real thing. The best Easter baskets have some nice chocolate or candy (not a pound of jellybeans — a small amount of quality stuff) plus one “anchor” gift the child will still have after Easter is over. A small art set, a figure, a book. That’s the formula.

Think seasonal, not just candy-adjacent. Easter lands in spring. Gifts tied to outside play, spring flowers, baby animals, gardening, or new books work beautifully because they extend the season.

Our picks for the Easter basket

For 3-7 year olds

Schleich farm animal figures — individual figures run $5-15. Two or three in a basket = the best kind of Easter gift at this age. Cows, sheep, chicks, lambs, a donkey — all fit the season.

Dr. Seuss Beginner Book Collection ($25-45) is the anchor gift for early readers. A book in an Easter basket feels intentional. Hop on Pop is practically Easter-themed.

A small Play-Doh set ($8-15) or the Play-Doh Kitchen Creations Ultimate Chef Set ($25-50) for the kid who’d spend hours making pretend pastries.

For 5-10 year olds

Nat Geo Bug Catcher Explorer Kit ($15-25) ties perfectly to spring exploration. A small magnifying glass, a bug jar, a field guide. For the kid who loves being outside.

Crayola Ultimate Art Case ($15-25) — best-value art gift in the catalog. Under $25 and the child uses it constantly through the rest of the year.

A small Schleich figure matched to their current obsession (dinosaurs, wild animals, horses). $5-12 each — perfect basket stuffer.

For tweens 9-13

Klutz Make Your Own Slime Kit ($15-25) — tweens love slime, and this is a nicer version than the generic Amazon bundles.

I Survived Series ($25-50 boxed set) for the reading kid — history-survival stories that work beautifully as a spring reading-start gift.

A nice chocolate bar from a real chocolatier ($8-15) paired with a $20 gift card to their preferred store — a more grown-up Easter nod.

For teens 14+

Teen grandkids have mostly aged out of the Easter basket experience. For them, keep it low-key:

• A nice chocolate bar ($8-15)
• A $25-50 gift card to somewhere they actually shop, with a small “Happy Easter” note
• A small book or magazine subscription they’ve shown interest in
• A hand-written note and a $20 bill for 14-year-olds who still want the acknowledgment

Don’t send a giant basket to a 16-year-old. It’ll feel patronizing.

Non-candy basket stuffers under $15

If you want to fill a basket without loading it with candy, here’s what works at the lowest price points:

• Small Schleich or Safari Ltd animal figures ($5-12)
• A kite ($10-20)
• Sidewalk chalk set ($5-10)
• Window gel clings for the season ($5-8)
• A coloring book + fresh crayons ($8-15)
• Seed-starter kit for kids to plant ($10-15)
• Bubble solution + wand ($5-10)
• A small puzzle (48-100 piece) ($8-12)
• Silly Putty or a fidget toy ($5-10)
• A small plush chick for babies/toddlers — ONE, not five ($8-15)

Three or four of these in a basket, plus some quality chocolate, is a great Easter basket.

What to skip for Easter

Giant plush animals. The 4-foot plush bunny is a photo op, not a gift. Parents hate them, kids don’t play with them after the first day.

Cheap Easter-themed plastic junk. Plastic grass, plastic eggs with plastic trinkets inside, glitter-coated anything. Landfill in a basket.

Mountains of candy. A pound of jellybeans is 10 times more than a child needs. Parents will throw most of it away. Small amounts of quality beats massive amounts of cheap.

Character-branded merch. Paw Patrol-themed Easter basket, Disney princess Easter egg set, etc. Your grandchild already has too much of this.

Gift-card-only Easter gifts for under-10s. Easter is tactile — kids want to unwrap and hold things. A gift card in an envelope falls flat at this age.

The simple Easter formula

Want a no-brainer formula for a great grandparent Easter gift? Follow this:

1. One anchor gift — a book, a small art kit, a Schleich figure. $15-30.
2. Some nice chocolate or candy (quality over quantity). $5-12.
3. One or two small basket stuffers — sidewalk chalk, bubbles, a puzzle. $5-15.
4. A small card with a handwritten note — “Happy Easter, sweetheart.”

Total: $25-60 depending on what you pick. Hits all the notes. Easter is small-scale by design — don’t try to make it bigger.

The bottom line

Easter gifts from grandparents should feel like spring — light, thoughtful, seasonal. A small thing that says you thought about them beats a giant basket that just feels transactional.

Save the big gift energy for birthdays. At Easter, less is more. Pick one or two good things, add a little candy, and you’ve got the basket they’ll remember.