Veronika got to help make lunch today! Okay, not exactly, but here’s a fantastic way to include a toddler while the rest of the family is cooking.

I gave Veronika the extra lettuce from a head we were using, and she didn’t need any instruction about what to do: tear it of course! I provided her with a big plastic bowl, and soon she had a little salad.

Your toddler is the perfect member of the family to patiently tear salad pieces, happily keeping busy with a task that might feel mundane to bigger kids.

In fact there was something beautiful in her concentration, as she worked.

I also gave her a little jar of dressing to shake shake shake, part instrument and part sensory bottle.

Between shaking and tearing, she kept busy with this for a full half hour. What a lovely project for a late spring afternoon.