{5-A-Day Books Challenge: Week 3 & Happy Monday}

I'm sorry to report that our 5-A-Day Books Challenge this past week was rather abysmal! We were away on holidays and spent pretty much all of our time either outside walking (hard to read and walk at the same time) or in the car (I can't read in the car, it makes me carsick). I did manage to read Each Peach Pear Plum a few times in the car since I know it by heart and didn't have to look at the book, and The Itsy Bitsy Spider a couple of times since I could just sing the song instead of really reading. We read a couple of other books as bedtime stories, and made up our own stories as well, so we still got some literacy time in, but mostly we were too busy having outdoor fun - a pretty good excuse, yes? (I know, I know, we should be doing both!)

So, I think for this week we will probably do the same books again as last week. However, Princess Pea has requested to add her new book, Night Monkey, Day Monkey by Julia Donaldson (the same author as The Gruffalo, which we did in Week 1) and illustrated by Lucy Richards. So we're substituting that for Chicka Chicka Boom Boom.

Night Monkey, Day Monkey is a story about two monkeys, one nocturnal and one not, who discover the differences in each other's surroundings. We've read it a couple of times already and it's led to new discussions about nocturnal animals, and comparing night and day. She's really interested in it, and was able to name a couple of other nocturnal animals (though she didn't know the word noctural before), and to explain why each monkey didn't know about the things they saw in the opposite time of day.

Anyway, we had a fabulous trip (which I will write about as soon as I have a chance - lots of great outdoor activities involved!), and I wanted to share something for Happy Monday. What makes me happy is SLOVENIA! I just can't get enough of that country! It's my new favourite place to visit (we went at Christmas this year and loved it so much we had to go back already at Easter!).

Check out this beautiful scenery!

And some views in winter, from our Christmastime visit:

Does it get any better than this?! Happy Monday! Oh, and Happy Easter, too!