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Train-Themed Easter Egg Fillers

April 6, 2014 By Jessica Petersen 13 Comments

When it came time to plan for the Little Engineer’s first egg hunt, he’d had only had a few tastes of chocolate, and no other candy to speak of (still hasn’t had any, I don’t think, though he does seem to think chocolate should be a food group).  So while my own fond childhood memories of Easter morning involved finding every last Cadbury Creme Egg, I wanted to think of something else fun for my own son that didn’t involve sugar. As you’ll see, what I did come up with was a hit.  Since then, we’ve collected a number of small train items that would make great Easter egg fillers, so I thought it might be helpful to compile them into one handy list.

Train Easter Egg Fillers recommended by Play Trains!

This post was originally published on March 26th, 2013. It contains links to Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk. If you click on one, we will receive a small commission — at no additional cost to you — on anything you buy at Amazon for a certain length of time afterwards. Read our disclosure policy for more details.

Easter Train Gifts and Activities for Kids

Train-Themed Easter Egg Fillers
Train Gifts for Easter Baskets
Easter Train Books for Kids
Train Engineer and Thomas & Friends Easter Eggs
Easy Easter Freight and Bunny Ears for Wooden Trains

 

For that first egg-hunting Easter, we filled his eggs with the Lego Duplo Community People Set. It filled plenty of Easter eggs and the play value of these figures just keeps growing as the Little Engineer gets older. This would be a good set to combine with putting either the Lego Duplo Number Train or the Duplo My First Train Set in an Easter basket.

Train-Themed Easter Egg Fillers @ Play Trains!

He had just discovered trains the year we did this, so as you can imagine, these two figures were the absolute favorites.  The engineer was the first one he found.  I have an adorable picture of that moment that I meant to put in this post, but the part of our server that crashed over the weekend with all of our photos and videos is still inaccessible (ack!), you’ll have to imagine the delight and awe radiating from him as he looked down at the engineer for the first time.

Train-Themed Easter Egg Fillers @ Play Trains!

These “Pez Trains”, as we call them, are our favorites in our tiny engine collection.  They’re the broken-off tops of Thomas & Friends Pez dispensers. I’ve seen them available at Toys’R’Us and one of the chain party stores, and those are the places I’d recommend buying them. For such small toys, they have enough detail and personality to look really great. Hide some Hexbug Nanos in some other eggs (this is the pack we got, with enough for all four Pez engines, but it looks like this pack is now a much better deal even though the colors don’t match as well) and follow the instructions in this video to make your Pez trains go!

Train-Themed Easter Egg Fillers @ Play Trains!

Next, there are the “Busy Book Trains.”  They live on my son’s windowsill above his bed with the Pez trains, and are well-loved, if not quite as pretty as the Pez ones.  This set of twelve characters from the Thomas the Tank Engine stories comes along with a play mat in the My Busy Books: Thomas and Friends set, which now has two different versions:

  • Version #1 of the Thomas Busy Book: includes Thomas, Percy, Henry, Edward, James, Gordon, Toby, Mavis, Annie, Clarabel, Harold, and Bertie. (A total of twelve engines/coaches/vehicles.) (Buy from Amazon: US / UK )
  • Version #2 of the Thomas Busy Book: includes Thomas, Percy, James, Edward, Gordon, Henry, Emily, Rosie, Mavis, Whiff, Spencer, and Bertie. (A total of twelve engines/vehicles.) (Buy from Amazon: US / UK )

Train-Themed Easter Egg Fillers @ Play Trains!

These are the trains my son rescued from a block of ice in one of our favorite activities.  They came in the Safari Steam Train Toob, and a “toob”  with a diesel engine and more modern freight cars is also available, which you can see in our Portable Pretend Model Train Set.  They are of a reasonable size to go with the Pez and Busy Book trains.

Train-Themed Easter Egg Fillers @ Play Trains!

However, some of the Train Toob coaches and freight cars do need a larger egg to fit in due to their length.  This carrot “egg” from the Dollar Tree worked well for that.

DIY Zoo Set for Wooden Trains @ Play Trains! Our train twist on the Jungle Diorama from Jo-ann's Cape Discovery summer crafting challenge. #summerofjoann

You also might want to consider some of the other Safari Ltd. Toobs beyond the train-themed ones. We like to use them as freight for our trains, like we did in our DIY Recycled Wooden Train Zoo.

Train-Themed Easter Egg Fillers @ Play Trains!

Now, I’m not sure where to get this Thomas, or what exactly he is.  My mom got it for the Little Engineer in November, and I haven’t been able to track it down.  But it’s really cute!  It’s a little smaller than a Take’n’Play engine, and all plastic, but nicely detailed and the quality seems good.  So if you know where to get one, let me know!  There do seem to be Take’n’Play Thomas eggs out there somewhere, but once again I’m not sure where, or if they’re just from a previous year.  Update: My husband discovered that this is a Rev & Go Thomas.

Thomas & Friends Rev & Go Easter Egg Pack @ Play Trains!

They also made Percy and James, a set of all three in Easter eggs, and a Rev & Go Round the Island Playset — you can’t get either of those on Amazon anymore, but you might check eBay for them, because they really are super cute.

Thomas & Cranky Play Angry Birds Space (and learn to read at the same time) @ Play Trains!  We've added lights, 3D cardboard letters, and a few good friends to our "live action" Angry Birds games, as the Little Engineer calls them, and it's fun for the whole family!

The LED finger lights we used with our trains and Angry Birds games for the Angry Birds Space Letter & Word Crash game would fit nicely in eggs, and they’re so much fun!

Exploring the Possibilities of an Instant Foam Railroad

The foam Instant Railroad would also make fun egg filler, as long as you’re sure it wouldn’t get mistaken for candy.

DIY removable Troublesome Truck faces for wooden trains. Any Thomas the Tank Engine fan would love this personality upgrade for these freight cars! Another fun DIY train project from Play Trains! http://play-trains.com

For the real Thomas fan, how about some DIY Troublesome Truck Face Stickers? So easy to make, and they add so much to train play.

IMG_4946

Several of the options I featured as potential Easter freight for wooden trains go well in an Easter egg hunt, like these Duplo bunnies and carrots that were part of the Little Engineer’s egg hunt last year.  It could be fun to put together a whole egg hunt of Easter freight for a child’s favorite trains, especially if you included some custom train story dice like these:

Train-Themed Easter Egg Fillers @ Play Trains!

I’ll have a full post on the story dice at some point, but you can kind of see how to make them from the photo.

 

For more train-themed Easter egg filler ideas, check out our Train Advent Calendar Gifts list!

 

More Easter Train Gift Guides

Train Gifts for Easter Baskets recommended by Play Trains!

Train Gifts for Easter Baskets

Easter Train Books for Kids recommended by Play Trains!

Easter Train Books for Kids

Easy Easter Freight and Bunny Ears for Wooden Trains from Play Trains!

Easter Freight and Easy Bunny Ears for Wooden Trains

Train Engineer and Thomas and Friends Easter Eggs from Play Trains!

Train Engineer and Thomas & Friends Easter Eggs

More Train Gifts for Kids

A Play Trains! Guide to Train Gifts for Preschoolers: Toys, Books, and More

Train Gifts for Preschoolers

A Play Trains! Guide to Train Gifts for Toddlers: Toys, Books, and More

Train Gifts for Toddlers

Filed Under: Cool Train Stuff, Easter, Train Obsessed Tagged With: Easter, gift guide, gift guides, gifts, holidays

« Easter Train Freight and Easy Bunny Ears for Wooden Trains
Train Engineer and Thomas & Friends Easter Eggs »

Comments

  1. Sarah says

    March 26, 2013 at 2:20 pm

    Love these ideas Jessica! I too have a toddler boy, Drew who is 2, and these ideas would be perfect. So glad I hopped over to your blog. Since you have a little guy too, I wanted to let you know that I hope you’ll join in our link party going up Thursday to show off his Easter Basket! Can’t wait to read more and hope you’ll follow back. Have a great Tuesday!

    Reply
    • Jessica says

      March 27, 2013 at 12:10 am

      Thanks!

      I’m supposed to have his Easter basket ready before Sunday morning? 😉 I’ll see if I can do it. I’m not sure his Easter basket is going to really be show-off worthy…most of the fun stuff will be in the egg hunt! I think previous years I had better baskets planned.

      Reply
  2. Trisha @ Inspiration Laboratories says

    March 28, 2013 at 2:55 am

    Those are great ideas for egg fillers. Can’t wait to see how you used your story dice!

    Reply
    • Jessica says

      March 28, 2013 at 7:39 am

      The story dice are so much fun! I need to take some more pictures of them in action…I was thinking of just writing about some past times we used them, but I love photos too much.

      Reply
  3. Jill says

    March 28, 2013 at 9:28 pm

    Oh my goodness…just found your website on Pinterest and I am so so excited! I have two train obsessed boys and your activities and ideas are awesome! This is my new favorite website!

    Reply
    • Jessica says

      March 29, 2013 at 7:30 am

      Wow, thanks! I’m glad you found us!

      Reply
  4. Mary Catherine says

    March 30, 2013 at 10:45 pm

    I always loving coming by your site, and my son has fun checking it out with me too. 🙂 We’re still having fun playing “night trains” based on your post! If you are up for it, I would love for you to share some of your ideas at my Stress-Free Sunday link up.

    Reply
    • Jessica says

      March 31, 2013 at 10:09 am

      Oh, glad to hear the night trains were fun! My little guy also likes to look at blogs over my shoulder. He’s especially a fan of browsing Pinterest, although he now usually asks to see more “tweeties!” now that I finally got a Twitter account.

      Thanks for letting me know about the link up! I definitely like the “stress-free” idea. I’ve added it to my list.

      Reply
  5. Mary Catherine says

    April 4, 2013 at 4:17 pm

    As always, I adore your ideas! I’m going to pin this post to use in the future. My Engineer always loves ideas from your Little Engineer and his mama! 🙂 Thanks for sharing at Stress-Free Sunday at Fun-A-Day!

    Reply
    • Jessica says

      April 5, 2013 at 5:08 am

      Thanks! I’m so glad the two of you enjoy our ideas.

      Reply
  6. Carrie says

    April 5, 2013 at 9:17 pm

    What wonderful ideas!! Thank you for sharing at Sharing Saturday!!

    Reply
  7. rebecca says

    March 29, 2015 at 4:20 pm

    There are now “mini” engines available – these shall feature nicely in our eggs this year. Both my girls (4 and 2) love trains! I was thinking of you when I saw them – so far, I have only found them in Walmart.

    Reply
    • Jessica Petersen says

      March 31, 2015 at 5:03 pm

      I haven’t seen the Minis yet…I really need to get to Walmart!

      Reply

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Jessica Petersen, author of Old Tracks, New Tricks
Hi, I'm Jessica! We're so happy you've climbed aboard the Play Trains! express. Next stop: a trainload of fun and learning for your little engineer!

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Hi, I'm Jessica! While playing trains for the last several years, my Little Engineer and I have had a lot of fun and learned so much together. I'm excited to share our discoveries with other people who have kids who love trains in their lives.

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