What your child learns in Year 4 Maths
Year 4 sits in the consolidation phase — multiplicative thinking, fractions and decimals, and increasingly formal geometry, measurement, and statistics. Below is every skill the refreshed New Zealand Curriculum (2025) expects a Year 4 student to practise — 50 objectives across 5 strands — exactly as our tutors track them.
Number
- Reading, writing, comparing, and ordering whole numbers up to 10,000 and representing them using base 10 structure
- Rounding whole numbers to the nearest thousand, hundred, or ten
- Rounding tenths to the nearest whole number
- Counting forwards and backwards in 2s, 3s, 4s, 5s, 6s, 7s, 8s, 9s, 25s, and 50s from multiples of the counting unit
- Counting in 10s, 100s, and 1,000s from any whole number up to 10,000
- Adding and subtracting up to four-digit numbers
- Memorising multiplication and corresponding division facts for 2s to 10s
- Using place value and known and derived facts to multiply and divide mentally, including multiplying by 0 and 1 and dividing by 1
- Multiplying two-digit and three-digit numbers by a one-digit number
- Dividing up to a three-digit whole number by a one-digit divisor, with no remainder (e.g. 65 ÷ 5)
- Reading, writing, and representing tenths as fractions and decimals
- Comparing and ordering tenths as fractions and decimals
- Memorising and using the decimal equivalent of 1 — 2 and fractions with denominators of 10
- Dividing one- and two-digit whole numbers by 10 to make decimals and identify tenths
- Multiplying decimal tenths by 10
- Comparing and ordering fractions with the same numerator or same denominator
- Relating fractions, improper fractions, and mixed numbers to their position on a number line
- Identifying when two fractions are equivalent, using representations
- Adding and subtracting fractions with the same denominators, including beyond a whole (e.g. 3 — 8 + 3 — 8 + 3 — 8 = 9 — 8 = 1 1 — 8 )
- Adding and subtracting decimals to one decimal place (e.g. 1.3 + 0.2 = 1.5)
- Using known multiplication and division facts to scale a quantity (e.g. to double or halve a recipe)
- Finding a unit fraction of a whole number, using multiplication and division facts and where the answer is a whole number (e.g. 1 — 3 of 300)
- Finding the whole set or amount when given a unit fraction, using multiplication and division facts (e.g. 1 — 4 of a set is 7, what is the whole set?)
- Calculating the total cost of several items costing whole-dollar amounts and with different prices, or of multiples of the same item, including giving change
- Representing amounts of currency using different combinations of denominations (e.g. making $5 and 80 cents in multiple ways using play money)
Algebra
- Checking the truth of number sentences and completing open number sentences involving addition and subtraction (e.g. 8205 − 4721 = 3484, true or false?; 4200- __ = 4001)
- Checking the truth of number sentences and completing open number sentences involving multiplication and division (e.g. 11 × 7 = 78, true or false?; __ ÷ 10 = 12).
- Recognising, continuing, creating, and describing growing patterns (including numerical and non-numerical patterns) that change by adding, subtracting, or multiplying by a constant whole number (e.g. 5, 7, 9, 11, ... 3, 6, 12, 24, ...)
Is your child on track? Our free 20-question online placement test checks these exact objectives and recommends a starting level — instant result, no login needed.
Take the free placement testMeasurement
- Using familiar objects (e.g. body parts) and experiences (e.g. time taken to travel to school, the temperature outside) to create estimation benchmarks
- Using the appropriate tool for measuring length, mass (weight), and capacity in mixed units (e.g. 1 m and 23 cm, 10 kg and 3 g, 2 L and 500 mL)
- Measuring temperature in degrees Celsius
- Measuring the perimeter of polygons using metric units (mm, cm, and m)
- Measuring the areas of irregular shapes covered with squares and half squares
- Calculating the areas of rectangular figures (including squares) using multiplication of side lengths
- Measuring the volumes of rectangular prisms (cuboids) by filling them with identical 3D blocks
- Estimating the size of angles by comparing them to 90, 180, and 360 degrees
- Telling the time on analogue and digital clocks to the nearest minute
- Measuring duration in hours, minutes, and seconds, including mixed time units (e.g. 1h and 42mins, 3mins and 21s)
- Finding equivalent durations of time using different units (e.g. 3 weeks is 21 days; 90 seconds = 1.5 minutes; 48 hours = 2 days)
Geometry
- Identifying, classifying, and describing the attributes of regular and irregular polygons of up to 12 sides, using edges, vertices, and angles
- Identifying the number of lines of symmetry in 2D shapes
- Visualising 3D shapes and connecting them with 2D diagrams, verbal descriptions, and the same shapes drawn from different perspectives
- Performing one-step transformations (reflections, translations, rotations) on 2D shapes
- Use alphanumeric and general grid references to identify regions and plot positions on a grid map
Statistics
- Collecting numerical data, and, if needed, rounding to an appropriate unit or part of a unit, based on the context (e.g. How many skips can we do in 30 seconds? How long does it take us to run 1000 m?)
- Creating dot-plot or bar-graph data visualisations
- Answering questions about the frequency of a particular value in dot plots
- Answering questions about individual values in a dot plot, while referring to the context
- Interpreting data visualisations
- Distinguishing between when to use a particular value or the frequency for a given value when answering questions about dot plots (e.g. How many pets does the person with the most pets have? What’s the most common number of pets that anyone has?)
Want help getting there? Vertex Academy runs small-group Study Hubs in Avondale — one $59/week membership, aligned to these curriculum objectives, first session free.
Book a free assessmentLearning objectives sourced from the New Zealand Curriculum (Mathematics and Statistics, 2025) © Ministry of Education, licensed under CC BY 4.0. Vertex Academy is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Ministry of Education.