1. Teacher Guide
This lesson is designed to teach kids to ask a critical thinking question that you can’t just put into a search box to solve. To do that, we encourage them with smaller questions that search can help them answer. Make sure that you read the notes for each slide: they not only give you teaching tips but also provide answers and hints so you can help the kids if they are having trouble.
Remember, you can always send feedback to the Bing in the Classroom team at You can learn more about the program at bing.com/classroom and follow the daily lessons on the Microsoft Educator Network.
Want to extend today’s lesson? Consider using Skype in the Classroom to arrange for your class to chat with another class in today’s location, take a Skype lesson on today’s topic, or invite a guest speaker to expand on today’s subject. And if you are using Windows 8, the panoramas in the MSN Travel App are great teaching tools. We have thousands of other education apps available on Windows here.
Nell Bang-Jensen is a teacher and theater artist living in Philadelphia, PA. Her passion for arts education has led her to a variety of roles including developing curriculum for Philadelphia Young Playwrights and teaching at numerous theaters and schools around the city. She works with playwrights from ages four to ninety on developing new work and is especially interested in alternative literacies and theater for social change. A graduate of Swarthmore College, she currently works in the Artistic Department of the Wilma Theater and, in addition to teaching, is a freelance actor and dramaturg. In 2011, Nell was named a Thomas J. Watson Fellow and spent her fellowship year traveling to seven countries studying how people get their names.
This lesson is designed to teach the Common Core State Standard: Number & Operations—Fractions
CCSS.Math.Content.4.NF.B.3.d Solve word problems involving addition and subtraction of fractions referring to the same whole and having like denominators, e.g., by using visual fraction models and equations to represent the problem.
CCSS.Math.Content.4.NF.B.3.c Add and subtract mixed numbers with like denominators, e.g., by replacing each mixed number with an equivalent fraction, and/or by using properties of operations and the relationship between addition and subtraction.

2. Bangkok is home to a large percentage of Thailand’s population
Bangkok is home to a large percentage of Thailand’s population. How could you represent this amount as a fraction?
© Getty Images
Having this up as kids come in is a great settle down activity. You can start class by asking them for thoughts about the picture or about ideas on how they could solve the question of the day.

3. Bangkok is home to a large percentage of Thailand’s population
Bangkok is home to a large percentage of Thailand’s population. How could you represent this amount as a fraction?
Shipping is the engine that keeps Bangkok’s economy humming. Situated at the northern tip of the Gulf of Thailand, with the Chao Phraya River delta providing inland passage, Bangkok became an economic powerhouse during the 1980s and ‘90s, thanks in large part to the robust shipping industry.
Depending on time, you can either have students read this silently to themselves, have one of them read out loud, or read it out loud yourself.

4. Bangkok is home to a large percentage of Thailand’s population
Bangkok is home to a large percentage of Thailand’s population. How could you represent this amount as a fraction? 1
Web Search/Thinking
If we knew what percentage of Thailand’s population lives in Bangkok, how could we translate this into a fraction? 2
If we were to create a fraction representing how many people live in Bangkok out of Thailand’s total population, what would represent the numerator? 3
If we were to create a fraction representing how many people live in Bangkok out of Thailand’s total population, what would represent the denominator? 4
Web Search
How many people live in Thailand? 5
How many people live in Bangkok?
There are a couple of ways to use this slide, depending on how much technology you have in your classroom. You can have students find answers on their own, divide them into teams to have them do all the questions competitively, or have each team find the answer to a different question and then come back together. If you’re doing teams, it is often wise to assign them roles (one person typing, one person who is in charge of sharing back the answer, etc.)

5. Bangkok is home to a large percentage of Thailand’s population
Bangkok is home to a large percentage of Thailand’s population. How could you represent this amount as a fraction? 5
Minutes
You can adjust this based on how much time you want to give kids. If a group isn’t able to answer in 5 minutes, you can give them the opportunity to update at the end of class or extend time.

6. Bangkok is home to a large percentage of Thailand’s population
Bangkok is home to a large percentage of Thailand’s population. How could you represent this amount as a fraction? 1
Web Search/Thinking
If we knew what percentage of Thailand’s population lives in Bangkok, how could we translate this into a fraction? 2
If we were to create a fraction representing how many people live in Bangkok out of Thailand’s total population, what would represent the numerator? 3
If we were to create a fraction representing how many people live in Bangkok out of Thailand’s total population, what would represent the denominator? 4
Web Search
How many people live in Thailand? 5
How many people live in Bangkok?

7. Bangkok is home to a large percentage of Thailand’s population
Bangkok is home to a large percentage of Thailand’s population. How could you represent this amount as a fraction? 1
Web Search/Thinking
If we knew what percentage of Thailand’s population lives in Bangkok, how could we translate this into a fraction?
(Possible queries: “how to convert a percentage into a fraction?”, “for kids, what does a percentage represent?).
From
A percent is a ratio whose second term is 100. Percent means parts per hundred. The word comes from the Latin phrase per centum, which means per hundred. In mathematics, we use the symbol % for percent.
Students should understand from this that we can translate a percentage into a fraction by putting it over 100. “Percent” means “per hundred”, so it is just like a fraction that has the denominator 100.

8. Bangkok is home to a large percentage of Thailand’s population
Bangkok is home to a large percentage of Thailand’s population. How could you represent this amount as a fraction? 2
Web Search/Thinking
If we were to create a fraction representing how many people live in Bangkok out of Thailand’s total population, what would represent the numerator?
(Possible queries: “for kids, what is a numerator?”, “for kids, what does a numerator represent?”).
From
The numerator of a fraction is the number on the top, just as the denominator is the number on the bottom. In the fraction 1/2, the numerator is one, and in the fraction 3/4, the numerator is three. The numerator tells you how many pieces of pie you're going to get to eat. If the fraction is 1/2, that means you cut the pie into two equal size pieces and then choose one of the pieces: you get one out of two pieces, or half the pie. If the fraction is 3/6, that means you cut the pie into six equal pieces and then choose three of the pieces. You eat three out of six pieces, or, again, half of the pie.
Students should understand from this example that Bangkok’s population would be the numerator of the fraction. In other words, it represents a part of the whole (the whole being Thailand’s entire population).

9. Bangkok is home to a large percentage of Thailand’s population
Bangkok is home to a large percentage of Thailand’s population. How could you represent this amount as a fraction? 3
Web Search/Thinking
If we were to create a fraction representing how many people live in Bangkok out of Thailand’s total population, what would represent the denominator?
(Possible queries: “for kids, what is a denominator?”, “for kids, what does a denominator represent?”).
From
The denominator of a fraction is the number on the bottom (the top is the numerator). In the fraction 1/2, the denominator is 2. In the fraction 45/66, the denominator is 66. In the fraction 2/3, the denominator is 3. For whole numbers, the denominator is always one, so when we say "three", we could also write that as 3/1. The denominator tells you how many pieces you're cutting your pie into, or how many stops there are between two whole numbers. If the fraction is 1/2, that means you cut the pie into two equal size pieces and then choose one of the pieces: you have one out of two pieces, or half the pie. If the fraction is 1/3, that means you cut the pie into three equal pieces and then choose one of the pieces. You eat one out of three pieces, or a third of the pie.
Students should understand from this example that Thailand’s entire population would be the denominator of the fraction. In other words, it represents the whole (the part of the whole would be the population of Bangkok).

10. Bangkok is home to a large percentage of Thailand’s population
Bangkok is home to a large percentage of Thailand’s population. How could you represent this amount as a fraction? 4
Web Search
How many people live in Thailand?
(Possible queries: “what is the population of Thailand?”, “Thailand’s population”).
From
Thailand Population: million (2013).

11. Bangkok is home to a large percentage of Thailand’s population
Bangkok is home to a large percentage of Thailand’s population. How could you represent this amount as a fraction? 5
Web Search
How many people live in Bangkok?
(Possible queries: “what is the population of Bangkok?”, “Bangkok’s population”).
From
Bangkok, Thailand population: 8.28 million (2010).

12. Bangkok is home to a large percentage of Thailand’s population
Bangkok is home to a large percentage of Thailand’s population. How could you represent this amount as a fraction?
Based on the information they have gathered, students can go about solving this problem in a few different ways. It may be easiest for them to look up what percentage of Thailand’s population lives in Bangkok in order to then convert this to a fraction. (From The city occupies 1,568.7 square kilometres (605.7 sq mi) in the Chao Phraya River delta in Central Thailand, and has a population of over 8 million, or 12.6 percent of the country's population). They can estimate this to 13%, and then, based on what they have determined about a percentage representing “per hundred”, should be able to convert this to 13/100. In other words, 13/100 of Thailand’s population lives in Bangkok.
Alternatively, they can solve this by creating a fraction based on the actual population sizes. Students have already determined that Thailand’s entire population (which they have looked up to be roughly million) will be their denominator. The population of Bangkok (8.28 million) will be the numerator. They can roughly estimate this as 8/67.
Either answer (or anything close to these) is acceptable. The concept of converting a percentage to a fraction, and/or the idea of creating a fraction out of two numbers and determining what is a part of what whole, are more important than the exact numbers that students come up with.