Working with melamine

Any tips on working with nelamine? I've planned out a 48 x 24 x 20 cage which will require 2 4x8 sheets of melamine.(if I got creative I could probably just use 1 but for 28 bucks I'd rather have more than enough). Is it hard to work with melamine? Home Depot and Lowe's will give me 2 cuts a sheet so I will have to do some cutting of my own with a circular saw. Is melamine difficult to cut? Also a couple worker mentioned needing to pre drill holes? Is that necessary? I've worked with wood my whole life but never this material, so just looking for some insight from those who have built similar things with it.

The biggest issue with melamine is chip out when you're cutting or drilling.

For cutting, generally a higher tooth blade will perform better for reducing chip out. Most circular saws come with low tooth count demolition blades which are very likely to cause chipping of the melamine.
Another thing that can help is running tape over your cut before you cut. Some people suggest scoring your cut first but I haven't really found it super necessary. Anyways, it's a bit difficult to do unless you're using a table saw.

You should pre-drill your screw holes.

And, use the tape trick also if you are going to be using any hole saws. Helps with the chip out too. And if you're worried about chipout on the back when using a hole saw, go half way through on one side, and then finish with the other. Otherwise you're pretty much guaranteed chipout with a hole saw.

-Brandon