Read & Create: Dinosaur Vs. Santa

Christmas excitement is mounting at our house, and we’re keeping the fun going with another Santa-themed book & project. When #thebigone was younger, we introduced him to the ‘Dinosaur Vs.’ series, and he quickly loved it. The text in the books is simple and predictive, making it great for young audiences, and the dinosaur roars peppered across every page make for a lot of fun & silly voices during read alouds. (Honestly, I’m not sure who enjoys enthusiastically roaring more, #thebigone or my husband).

When we found the Dinosaur vs. Santa (Board Book) (A Dinosaur vs. Book) (affiliate disclosure), we knew it would be the perfect addition to our holiday library. Bob Shea’s iconic Dinosaur battles the stress of the holiday season with gusto, and his quirky, bold face amuses in each scenario.

I created a mainly cut & paste craft for #thebigone to work on, based on one scene from the picture book. Depending on the age and ability level of your child (and maybe also how patient you’re feeling any given day!), you can adjust the project accordingly. For very young kids, I would likely have the parts cut, and engage them in the gluing & placing portion of the craft. Older kids, like my six year old can work on all aspects of this project, but may need help with some of the trickier parts.

Another note, feel free to make supply adjustments as you see fit, and based around your time, budget, and what you may already have on hand. I provide an idea of the items we used, but most are easily replaced with something else (patterned paper instead of fabric, etc.), so don’t feel like you have to buy every supply we used. [But if you do need a good excuse to hit up Hobby Lobby or something, then hey, I’m your gal. Go shop, you neeeeed it for this project!]

Materials:
– Printable worksheet (happy or fierce options available below).
– Base paper/cardboard/cardstock to glue onto.
– Blanket material; we used patterned felt.
– Blanket edging material; we used solid felt.
– Pillow material; we used a textured white fabric.
– Small Santa hats; optional. (Could easily be made from paper as well).
– Something to color with; we used markers.
– Scissors.
– Glue.

We grabbed our printable sheets, and started by coloring in our dinos. We cut out the dinos, and also cut out the template pieces for the other portions of the craft. We used the templates to trace onto the other materials, and then cut those parts out. (Blanket, blanket edging, pillow). We glued everything onto the base paper, in order of: blanket, blanket edging, pillow, dinosaur, Santa hat. To complete our project (and squeeze in a little bit of handwriting practice) we wrote our own ‘Roars!’ around that silly dinosaur.

I hope you guys have fun making this project, and that it helps you get in the Christmas spirit! I’d love to see your roaring dinos, so feel free to email me photos of your projects, or tag me on social media.

If you’re thinking about adding this book to your home library, please consider purchasing via my Amazon Affiliate link below- you’ll get a book that we love & highly recommend at no additional cost to you, while I earn a small commision that allows me to be home with my kiddos. Win-win, right?!

Ideas for holiday fun are taking over Pinterest right now!
More great ideas inspired by kids books are always a good idea!