The paper discusses an approach to teaching nonlinear analysis of frames. The approach involves illustrating the consequences of various approximations made in nonlinear frame analysis. We start with a fully nonlinear beam model and solve the governing equations by either an analytical or a numerical technique. Simplified theories are generated by expanding the nonlinear term using Taylor series. The results from the simplified theories can be compared with the fully nonlinear theory and this allows students to assess the effects of nonlinear approximations.