Dragons Love Tacos is a New York Times bestseller book with more than five million copies sold. This popular children’s picture book has quickly become a favorite book in our house. It is one of those silly books that we just cannot get enough of! Just keep reading to find some book-inspired activities.
Click here for the FREE printables for the activities below!
Activity #1: Create your own spicy salsa label
In Dragons Love Tacos the little boy accidentally gives the dragons spicy salsa at the taco party because he forgets to read the fine print on the label. This gets him in some red-hot trouble. This simple, but creative and fun activity lets the each child design their own label for mild salsa. Just print out the label outline for each child and let them get creative.
If you are working with older children, you can have them fill out a list of ingredients for their salsa. You can prompt them beforehand and talk about ingredients that might be found in salsa, or you can just let them go for it and see what wild things they come up with.
For younger children, just let them create a fun label. You can display them flat or wrap them around jars.
Activity #2: Order the tacos by size
This activity is geared more towards little learners. Print out the color images from the “Taco Size” Worksheet. At the very beginning of the book it lists all sorts of tacos that dragons like: great big tacos and teeny tiny tacos. This learning manipulative will help them line up the dragons’ favorite food by size. Just print, cut, and organize!
When I do this activity I lay out the sizing strip and talk to them about all the “size words” at the bottom. I show them with my hands what the sizes mean. I have them copy me and then sit back to see what they understood. I like to use this activity to gauge how well they understand when I am talking to them.
For my littlest learners, I do the whole activity with them a couple times and then stand back and see how much they understood. This gives me a good idea what we need to work on and where they are in their development when it comes to sorting sizes. It is a tricky skill, so be patient and remember they are learning at their own pace.
Activity #3: Paper plate tacos
This is a super easy craft to do. Just start with a paper plate fold it in half to make a taco shell. Then have the dragon’s favorite taco toppings they can place inside: Tomatoes, lettuce cheese. (Just using paper toppings of course!) You can prepare these toppings beforehand or if your learners are able they can prepare the taco toppings themselves.
I cut up little chunks of red paper for the tomatoes.
For the lettuce, I cut small strips of green paper and crinkle them up. If you want to incorporate some fine-motor skill development, have them fold the strips of lettuce back and forth accordion style to make them look “crunchy”.
For the cheese, I cut up the paper in the smallest strips I can. (Also a great fine motor skill activity for your capable learners.)
I then put a couple staples in the folded plate to hold it all together. We don’t want too many toppings falling out and making a mess. 😉
Remind them to leave off any spicy toppings! We don’t want a bunch of dragons blowing fire out of their mouths!
Activity #4: Dragon memory game
Story elements are pulled from the book for the matches in this game. Just print and cut the cards as precisely as you can. Make sure to print them out on a heavier paper so the players will not be able to see through the back of the cards.
Then just flip them over and play.
I play this game with my toddler and after a few rounds he grasped the concept. If they are having a hard time taking turns, they may not be ready for that element yet.
If that is the case, just let them play by themselves. Let them learn to flip over the cards, see if they are a match, flip them back over, and then put them back in their original location. Just this pattern of play will take your children awhile to get the hang of.
After they have mastered the pattern of play, then you can try adding in multiple players.
I hope these interactive activities helps you the most out of reading “Dragons Love Tacos”. This fun story and themed activities are sure to help your learners get more out of the book and learn some new skills along the way!
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