Below you will find links to several projects and lesson plans geared around Bean Thirteen. They are suitable for a wide variety of grades and class sizes, and include both art and language activities. Each activity can be printed or downloaded for later use.

I’m always on the lookout for new ideas and suggestions, so if you’ve found a good way to incorporate one of my books into the classroom, I’d love to hear about it. In the mean time, have fun with the following projects.

Bean Math

Bean Math is a series of projects that use beans to explore concepts of odd and even numbers, division, remainders, fractions, and prime and composite numbers. Students play the parts of Ralph and Flora, inviting guests to dinner. By investigating which numbers of beans divide evenly among the guests, rules and patterns begin to emerge. Bean Math is suitable for a variety of grades.

Download the PDF version: Bean math

No More Beans!

For this activity, students select the appropriate parts of speech with the right number of syllables to complete a poem about Ralph and Flora. This project can be done as a classroom activity (for younger students) or in pairs (with older students).

Download the PDF version: No More Beans

Invite a Bug to Dinner

In the book, Ralph and Flora invite a variety of different bugs over for dinner. If you were having a bug dinner party, who would come?

Download the PDF version: Invite A Bug

Flora’s Magic Disappearing Bean

This is a printable version of Flora’s Magic Disappearing Bean. It is based loosely on a classic nineteenth century puzzle called “Get Off the Earth” by American puzzlemaker Sam Lloyd.

Students can print this puzzle, cut out the pieces, and try to figure out how swapping two halves of the set of beans can turn thirteen into twelve.

Download the PDF version: Magic Bean