Christmas stocking fillers under $20: 71 ideas by age
Christmas stocking fillers under $20: 71 ideas by age
Seventy-one Christmas stocking filler ideas for kids aged two to six, all under $20 and all available in Australia, picked by a paediatric occupational therapist.
Stockings are part of the tradition and the fun of Christmas. I still remember the joy of unwrapping the little goodies inside.
In today's world, with rising prices and a lot of trending toys that don't last, I wanted to have a look at some great affordable finds to put in kids' stockings this year.
So this is the list I'd work from instead: seventy-one things, split into two tiers for each age from two to six.
Stocking fillers for 2 year olds
Under $10, and small enough to fit in a stocking
Nuby Fun Watering Can Bath Toy $5.99
4.7 stars, 6,962 ratings
They scoop, they tip, and they watch where the water actually lands.
Oball Rattle & Roll Vehicle $8.00
4.6 stars, 9,012 ratings
Perfect pick for easy hand manipulation and early pretend play.
Under $20
Tomy Lamaze Pile and Play Stacking Cups $7.19
4.8 stars, 1,737 ratings
They nest and they stack, which means working out size order and then letting go with some control. The cheapest thing on this whole list and one of the best.
Nuby Floating Octopus Bath Toy $12
4.6 stars, 58,203 ratings
They post rings onto a target while it bobs about. Two hands, one moving target.
Melissa & Doug Pets Peg Puzzle $14.49
4.7 stars, 4,725 ratings
The knobs are the point. They ask for a pincer grip rather than a whole hand, which is the grip that comes before a pencil.
TOMY Toomies Hide and Squeak Eggs $14.99
4.6 stars, 1,125 ratings
Open, match, put back. Container play and shape matching in one, and the squeak keeps them at it.
Munchkin Falls Bath Toy $16.95
4.7 stars, 8,660 ratings
Stack the cups on the wall, pour water in the top, watch what happens. Cause and effect they are in charge of, in a place they are already sitting.
Stocking fillers for 3 year olds
Under $10, and small enough to fit in a stocking
Siku DHL Delivery Van Die-Cast $5.48
4.6 stars, 2,294 ratings
One good vehicle sets off a whole delivery run around the lounge room.
BIC Kids Plastidecor Triangle Crayons $5.50
4.6 stars, 13,584 ratings
Crayons are a staple at this age for colouring and drawing.
Briarpatch First 100 Animals Matching Game $6.99
4.4 stars, 265 ratings
Turn over, match, take turns.
Under $20
Melissa & Doug Water Wow, Farm $10.99
Fat pen, no mess, and the page dries back to blank, so it resets forever. The barrel is the right thickness for a three-year-old hand.
Crayola Washable Sidewalk Chalk $11
Drawing on concrete uses the whole arm and shoulder rather than the fingers, which is the right scale at three.
Melissa & Doug Design-Your-Own Bracelets $11.99
So cute. A fun, crafty fine motor activity.
Melissa & Doug Reusable Sticker Pad, Vehicles $12.99
Peeling a sticker off the sheet and putting it where they meant to is fiddly precision work. These lift off and go back on, so it resets forever.
Stacking cups $12.99
Nesting, stacking and size ordering in one set, and they do a second life in the bath and the sandpit as pouring cups.
Galt Farm Animals 4 Puzzles in a Box $13.79
4.7 stars, 2,155 ratings
Four puzzles that step up in difficulty, so there's somewhere to go once the first one's easy. Edge matching and sticking with it.
Schleich Andalusian Horse Figurine $14.24
4.8 stars, 13,561 ratings
One good animal figure does more for pretend play than a bucket of cheap ones.
Melissa & Doug Pets Peg Puzzle $14.49
The peg grips are a great start before moving to smaller pieces.
Learning Resources Primary Shapes Template Set $14.95
Pre-writing. Tracing around a shape is the step between scribbling and letters, and the template holds still while they go around it.
Rolling and cutting playdough is real resistance work for hand strength, with both hands doing different jobs at once.
Galt Fun Buttons, 40 pieces $18
4.6 stars, 1,996 ratings
Laces through buttonholes. One hand holds and steadies, the other feeds, the two-handed pattern that shows up again in cutting and writing.
4.4 stars, 67,165 ratings
You wait your turn, take a chance, and then handle it when the thing pops. Short enough that a three-year-old stays with it.
A fat cylinder to wrap a whole hand around, and aiming each dot at a target takes more control than it looks.
Little Brian Bath Paint Sticks, 6 pack $11.99
Painting in the bath, and it washes straight off the tiles. Twist-up sticks, so no brush, no palette and nothing to clean up afterwards.
Dinosaur Pull Back Vehicles, 6 pack $15.99
Pull it back, let it go. One movement, instant result, and six of them means a race. Tiny, so they actually fit in a stocking.
Stocking fillers for 4 year olds
Under $10, and small enough to fit in a stocking
Hot Wheels Monster Truck, single 1:64 $5.00
4.7 stars, 1,184 ratings
Five dollars, nine centimetres, and it will get crushed, ramped and narrated for months.
BIC Kids Evolution Triangular Colouring Pencils $5.50
4.6 stars, 13,584 ratings
Everyone needs colouring pencils as a staple, especially at this age, where colouring in and drawing become much more common.
Old Maid Card Game $6.45
4.7 stars, 1,010 ratings
Four is a great age to learn some introductory card games. Great news for board game loving parents.
Under $20
Melissa & Doug Design-Your-Own Bracelets $11.99
4.6 stars, 8,978 ratings
So cute. A fun, crafty fine motor activity.
Crayola Washable Sidewalk Chalk $11
4.8 stars, 15,436 ratings
Chalk on the driveway works the whole arm and shoulder rather than the fingers, which is the right scale at four. It also gets them outside.
Galt Jungle 4 Puzzles in a Box $13.79
4.7 stars, 1,534 ratings
Four puzzles starting small and grading bigger, so they can progress as they get better at puzzling.
Learning Resources Primary Shapes Template Set $14.95
4.8 stars, 3,096 ratings
They trace inside and around the shapes. It's the step that sits between scribbling and forming letters.
Orchard Toys Dinosaur Dominoes $14.99
4.7 stars, 2,576 ratings
Picture matching and turn-taking in a game that's over in ten minutes.
Outdoor Nature Scavenger Hunt Cards $17
4.6 stars, 2,244 ratings
A deck of things to find outside. At four it is matching a picture to the real thing, and it works at the park, the beach or the backyard.
Galt Fun Buttons, 40 pieces $18
4.6 stars, 1,996 ratings
Laces through buttonholes. One hand holds and steadies while the other feeds, the two-handed pattern that shows up again in cutting and writing.
UNO Junior $18.23
4.8 stars, 14,381 ratings
A fan of cards is its own hand skill, and colour-and-number rules are about as much structure as a four-year-old can carry.
Skillmatics Magical Scratch Art Book $19.99
4.6 stars, 1,564 ratings
A mindful art activity for kids who like to sit and draw or colour.
Melissa & Doug Scissor Skills Activity Pad $9.99
Cutting practice with the lines already printed for them.
Little Brian Bath Paint Sticks, 6 pack $11.99
Painting in the bath, and it washes straight off the tiles. Twist-up sticks, so no brush, no palette and nothing to clean up afterwards.
Play-Doh Marvel Spider-Man Thwip Squisher Set $14.99
Squishing and squeezing dough is real hand strength work, wrapped up in a character they already care about.
Dinosaur Pull Back Vehicles, 6 pack $15.99
Pull it back, let it go. One movement, instant result, and six of them means a race. Tiny, so they actually fit in a stocking.
Stocking fillers for 5 year olds
Under $10, and small enough to fit in a stocking
Go Fish Card Game $6.99
4.7 stars, 689 ratings
Asking, remembering who said they had what, and waiting your turn. A whole game in a box the size of a phone.
Waddingtons Number 1 Playing Cards $7.84
4.6 stars, 926 ratings
A real deck. Shuffling and dealing is its own hand skill, and Snap, Go Fish and Memory all come out of one pack.
Crayola Silly Scents Slim Markers, 10 pack $8.00
4.8 stars, 350 ratings
Slim barrels ask for a pinch grip rather than a fist, which is about right at five.
Sakura Cray-Pas Junior Oil Pastels, 16 colours $9.11
4.6 stars, 4,160 ratings
Pressing, blending and layering with the whole stick. A flat tin, so it slides straight into a stocking.
Under $20
KINGOU Hexagon Tangram Puzzle $10
4.7 stars, 935 ratings
Shapes into a fixed frame. You have to rotate a piece in your head before you try it, and then try again when you're wrong.
Crayola 24 Coloured Pencils $10.91
4.8 stars, 8,869 ratings
Unglamorous, and the thing they'll use most. Colouring in detail takes the kind of sustained hand work that school handwriting uses.
Waboba Moon Ball $14.06
4.6 stars, 9,305 ratings
Bounces absurdly high and not always where you expect. Watching it, chasing it, getting a hand to it is the whole game. Off concrete it clears a single-storey roof, which I worked out the expensive way.
Djeco Mini Family Card Game $14.95
4.8 stars, 591 ratings
Another option for card games if your family is loving them.
Outdoor Nature Scavenger Hunt Cards $17
4.6 stars, 2,244 ratings
A deck of things to find outside. Searching against a list, then deciding whether what they have found actually counts.
Skillmatics Guess in 10: Animal Planet $17.99
4.7 stars, 18,781 ratings
Ten yes or no questions to narrow down an answer. Narrowing down instead of guessing wildly is the hard part, and it takes a few rounds before it clicks.
Galt Fun Buttons, 40 pieces $18
4.6 stars, 1,996 ratings
Laces through buttonholes. One hand holds and steadies while the other feeds, the two-handed pattern that shows up again in cutting and writing.
Skillmatics Magical Scratch Art Book $19.99
4.6 stars, 1,564 ratings
A mindful art activity for kids who like to sit and draw or colour.
Simxkai Rainbow Delta Kite $19.99
4.6 stars, 682 ratings
To get it up they have to run, time the release, then keep making small corrections on the line. Great fun outdoor activity for a windy day.
Melissa & Doug Scissor Skills Activity Pad $9.99
Cutting practice with the lines already printed for them.
Little Brian Bath Paint Sticks, 6 pack $11.99
Painting in the bath, and it washes straight off the tiles. Twist-up sticks, so no brush, no palette and nothing to clean up afterwards.
Play-Doh Marvel Spider-Man Thwip Squisher Set $14.99
Squishing and squeezing dough is real hand strength work, wrapped up in a character they already care about.
Dinosaur Pull Back Vehicles, 6 pack $15.99
Pull it back, let it go. One movement, instant result, and six of them means a race. Tiny, so they actually fit in a stocking.
Stocking fillers for 6 year olds
Under $10, and small enough to fit in a stocking
Staedtler Noris Aquarell Watercolour Pencils $8.95
4.8 stars, 1,348 ratings
Draw dry, then go over it with a wet brush and watch it change. Two techniques in one pencil.
100 Wooden Alphabet Scrabble Tiles $9.38
4.6 stars, 997 ratings
A bag of letter tiles and nothing else. Building words and pulling them apart again, on the floor, with no board telling them what to do.
Top Trumps Sonic the Hedgehog $9.95
4.8 stars, 745 ratings
They compare numbers across categories and pick the one that wins. Quiet maths inside a game about Sonic.
Bicycle Mickey Mouse Playing Cards $9.95
4.8 stars, 772 ratings
A proper deck with a good finish. Snap, Rummy, card houses, and the shuffling that goes with all of it.
Under $20
UNO Classic $6
4.8 stars, 84,144 ratings
Six dollars. Reading what has been played and deciding when to drop a wild card is more thinking than it looks like.
Outdoor Nature Scavenger Hunt Cards $17
4.6 stars, 2,244 ratings
A deck of things to find outside. Searching against a list and identifying what you have got, and it works at the park, the beach or the backyard.
Coogam Wooden Tangram Jigsaw $18.99
4.6 stars, 17,083 ratings
Rebuild a printed silhouette from seven pieces. Sixty puzzles, gets genuinely hard, and it's quiet.
EverBrite Mini Torches, 3 pack $18.99
4.6 stars, 1,716 ratings
A real torch, not a toy one. For tents, cubby houses, reading under the covers.
Skillmatics Magical Scratch Art Book $19.99
4.6 stars, 1,564 ratings
A mindful art activity for kids who like to sit and draw or colour.
Simxkai Rainbow Delta Kite $19.99
4.6 stars, 682 ratings
To get it up they have to run, time the release, then keep making small corrections on the line. Great fun outdoor activity for a windy day.
LEGO Creator 3 in 1 Cute Hamster 31376 $10.00
Three builds from the one box, so it gets pulled apart and rebuilt rather than finished once. Following a picture sequence step by step is its own skill at six.
Dinosaur Pull Back Vehicles, 6 pack $15.99
Pull it back, let it go. One movement, instant result, and six of them means a race. Tiny, so they actually fit in a stocking.
A few questions people ask
What do you put in a stocking for a 2 year old?
Small, sturdy things they can use the same morning. A bath scoop, a set of stacking cups, chunky crayons. At two I would skip anything with small parts or batteries, because it either is not safe or it does not last.
How much should you spend on stocking fillers?
Everything on this list is under $20, and each age has a tier under $10. For a stocking I would rather four things a child will actually use than one bigger thing that ends up sitting next to it.
What are good stocking fillers that are not toys?
Art supplies and card games do the most work here. Colouring pencils, chalk, a deck of cards, a scratch art book. They get used long after the novelty things have gone in the bin.
When should you buy stocking fillers?
Any time other than the 22nd at the shops. Prices move through November and December, and the small things are the last to sell out, so early December is plenty of time.
Brittany is a paediatric occupational therapist who has been registered with AHPRA for nearly nine years, working with kids and their families across homes, schools and her own clinic in Perth.
Through Kidera she shares her toy picks alongside OT tips for supporting children through play, skill development and goals, drawing on her professional experience and her own opinion. The aim is a community where parents feel supported and confident navigating raising kids, and where other professionals can pick up something useful too.
Some links in this post are Amazon affiliate links, and Kidera earns a small commission if you buy through one. It costs you nothing extra and it doesn't change what makes the list. Everything here was checked in September 2026, and prices move, so have a look before you buy.
