Parent’s guide to Year 4 Maths at
This booklet is designed to help you help your child with maths at home. It
contains and overview of the key learning objectives of their academic year
and also includes ideas of activities & websites that you can use at home.
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Our aim is that by the end of Year 4, all children should understand how to;
Recall all 10 times tables by heart, e.g. know facts like 7 x 5 and 36 ÷ 4.
Order numbers up to thousands in size.
Use positive & negative numbers and position them on a number line.
Round numbers like 1672 to the nearest 10, 100 or 1000.
Use diagrams to identify equivalent fractions e.g. 68 and 34, or 70100 and 710; understand mixed
numbers and position them on a number line e.g. 312
Find fractions of numbers, quantities or shapes e.g. 15 of 30 plums, 38 of £24.
Work out sums like 26 + 58 and 62 – 37 in their head.
Work out sums like 234 + 479 or 791 – 223 using pencil & paper and writing them in columns.
Multiply numbers like 38 by 10 or by 100, and divide numbers like 4200 by 10 or by 100.
Use written methods for multiplication and division e.g. 36 x 3, 87 ÷ 4, including finding
remainders
Use standard metric units and their abbreviations when estimating, measuring and
recording length, weight and capacity. Change pounds to pence and centimetres to
metres, and vice versa, e.g. £3.45 = 345p, 3.5 metres = 350 centimetres.
Answer a question by identifying what data to collect; organise, present, analyse and
interpret the data in tables, diagrams, tally charts, pictograms and bar charts.
Know that angles are measured in degrees and that one whole turn is 360°; compare and
order angles less than 180°
Fun
activities
do at
home
reinforce
Tell the
time to theto
nearest
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andto
usehelp
a simple
timetable.these areas.
Pick out shapes with similar features, e.g. shapes with sides the same length, or with right
angles, or symmetrical shapes. Use nets to make 3D shapes.
Use +, –, x, ÷ to solve problems and decide whether it is best to calculate in their head or
on paper.
How much?
♦ While shopping, point out an item costing less than £1.
♦ Ask your child to work out in their head the cost of 3 items.
♦ Ask them to guess first and see how close they come.
♦ Work out what change you would receive for these items if you paid with £1/£2/£5.
♦ If you see any items labelled, for example, ‘2 for £3.50’, ask them to work out
the cost of 1 item for you, and to explain how they got the answer.
Multiplication game.
♦ Put some dominoes face down.
♦ Shuffle them.
♦ Each choose a domino.
♦ Multiply the two numbers on your domino.
♦ Whoever has the biggest answer keeps the two
dominoes.
♦ The winner is the person with the most dominoes
when they have all been used.
Dice game.
Use three dice. If you have only one dice, roll it 3 times.
♦ Make three-digit numbers, e.g. if you roll 2, 4 and 6, you
could make 246, 264, 426, 462, 624 and 642.
♦ Ask your child to round the three-digit number to the nearest multiple of 10.
Check whether it is correct, e.g. 76 to the nearest multiple of 10 is 80.
134 to the nearest multiple of 10 is 130. (A number ending in a 5 always rounds up.)
♦ Roll again. This time round three-digit numbers to the nearest 100.
Measuring.
Use a tape measure that shows centimetres.
♦ Take turns measuring lengths of different objects, e.g. the length of a sofa, the
width of a table, the length of the bath, the height of a door.
♦ Record the measurement in centimetres, or metres and centimetres if it is
more than a metre, e.g. if the bath is 165 cm long, you could say it is 1m 65cm
or 1.65m.
♦ Write all the measurements in order.
Times tables.
Children should know their 2,5,10,3 and 4 times tables really well at the start of
Y4. They should be able to recite them forwards and backwards, and know the
related division facts ie. 9x4= 36, 36÷9=4.
Practice saying together these times tables forwards, then backwards.
Ask your child questions, such as: Nine threes? How many sixes in 30? Six times
four? Forty-eight divided by four? Three multiplied by six? Six times what equals
sixty?
A few questions in the car on the way to school every morning
is much more effective than spending half an hour once a week.
There are lots of interactive times table activities on the internet. A good website
to start with is:
http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/maths/timestable/index.html
Place value, ordering
and rounding.
Thousands, ten thousand,
hundred thousand, million
digit, four-digit number,
>, greater than, bigger
than, more than, larger
than <, less than, fewer
than, smaller than,
one thousand, more/less,
compare, first… tenth…
twentieth, last, last but
one, before, after , next,
half-way between,
estimate, approximate,
round (up or down),
round to the nearest ten/
hundred, integer, positive,
negative, above/below
zero, minus.
Properties of numbers
and number sequences.
Odd, even, multiple of,
digit, next, consecutive
sequence , predict,
pattern, pair, rule,
relationship, sort, classify,
property.
Fractions and decimals.
Equal parts, fraction, one
whole, half, quarter,
eighth, third, sixth, fifth,
tenth, twentieth,
proportion, in every, for
every, decimal fraction,
decimal point, decimal
place.
Addition & subtraction.
More, plus, increase
sum, total, altogether
score, double, near
double, subtraction, take
away, minus, decrease
leave, difference between
half, halve, equals, tens
boundary, hundreds
boundary, inverse.
Multiplication &
division.
Lots of, groups of
times, multiplication,
product, repeated
addition, row, column
double, halve, share
equally, divisible by
remainder, factor,
quotient, inverse.
Handling data.
Count, tally, sort, vote
survey, questionnaire,
data, graph, block graph,
pictogram, frequency
table, Carroll diagram,
Venn diagram, label, title,
axis, axes.
Measure.
edge, perimeter, kilometre
(km), metre (m), centimetre
(cm), millimetre (mm)
mile, ruler, metre stick,
tape, mass, weight,
kilogram(kg), halfkilogram, gram(g) balance,
scales
Capacity.
Capacity, full / half full,
empty, litre (l), half-litre,
millilitre(ml),pint,
measuring cylinder
Area
Area, covers, surface,
square centimetre (cm2)
Time
Days of the week: months
of the year: seasons, leap
year, century, millennium
date of birth, timetable,
arrive, depart, digital/
analogue clock.
Shape and space.
face, side, edge, draw,
sketch, radius, diameter,
net, surface , angle, rightangled, base, squarebased, vertex, vertices,
diagram, regular, irregular
concave, convex.
3D shapes.
3D, three-dimensional
cube, cuboids, pyramid,
sphere, hemi-sphere,
spherical, cone, cylinder,
cylindrical, prism,
tetrahedron, polyhedron
2D shapes
2D, two-dimensional
circle, circular, semicircle, triangular,
equilateral triangle,
isosceles triangle,
square, rectangular,
oblong, pentagonal,
hexagonal, heptagon,
octagonal, polygon,
quadrilateral.
Patterns and symmetry
Symmetrical, line of
symmetry, fold, mirror
line, reflection, reflect,
pattern, repeating pattern,
translation.
Position, direction and
movement
Opposite, apart
between, middle, edge,
ascend, descend, origin,
coordinates, clockwise,
anti-clockwise, compass
point, north, south, east,
west (N, S, E, W)
north-east, north-west,
south-east, south-west
(NE, NW, SE, SW)
horizontal, vertical,
diagonal, whole turn, half
turn, quarter turn, rotate
angle, right angle, degree,
straight line, protractor,
angle measurer,compasses.
Year 4 Maths Vocabulary. Please encourage your child to use these words at home.