diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 9a78efc..998dce5 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -7,4 +7,7 @@ Project Title:
 Hangman
 
 Description:
-A project to produce the game of hangman using Python
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+A project to produce the game of hangman using Python
+milestone_2.py - file that runs through the list of words and takes and checks a user input
+milestone_3.py - file that defines two functions to check user input and then see if it's in the word
+milestone_4.py - file that creates the Hangman class and then builds on the functionality of the above two files and cleans up the code
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/milestone_4.py b/milestone_4.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5213e5e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/milestone_4.py
@@ -0,0 +1,40 @@
+import random
+# class definition for hangman
+class Hangman:
+    # hangman constructor
+    def __init__ (self, word_list, num_lives=5):
+        # attributes
+        self.word = random.choice(word_list)
+        self.word_guessed = ['_' for _ in self.word]
+        self.num_letters = len(set(self.word))
+        self.word_list = word_list    
+        self.num_lives = num_lives
+        self.list_of_guesses = []
+    
+    # methods
+    def check_guess(self, guess):
+        guess = guess.lower()
+        if guess in self.word:
+            print(f'Good guess! {guess} is in the word.')
+            for i in range(len(self.word)):
+                if self.word[i] == guess:
+                    self.word_guessed[i] = guess
+            self.num_letters -= 1
+        else:
+            self.num_lives -= 1
+            print(f'Sorry, {guess} is not in the word')
+            print(f'You have {self.num_lives} lives left')
+    def ask_for_input(self):
+        while True:
+            guess = input('Guess a single letter: ')
+            if not (len(guess) == 1 and guess.isalpha()):
+                print("Invalid letter. Please, enter a single alphabetical character.")
+            elif guess in self.list_of_guesses:
+                print("You already tried that letter!")
+            else:
+                self.check_guess(guess)
+                self.list_of_guesses.append(guess)
+    
+# test the code
+hangman = Hangman(['apple', 'banana', 'cherry'])
+hangman.ask_for_input()
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