The 100 Toy Cars Went to School as a Photograph

A photograph of a hundred toy cars is the work of a parent who has already been through this once. I know, because I am that parent, and the first time I was not.

It was the youngest's kindergarten year. She chose Lego. On the night before, at 9:40 p.m., we counted. We got to ninety-seven, recounted, got to a hundred and four, and found the difference under the dog. At 10:15 we had exactly one hundred. At 10:16 she built a tower, which used eleven.

The early-childhood teacher Vanessa Levin, whose Pre-K Pages site is full of hundredth-day ideas, solved this problem years ago. Her advice: tell parents the collection must fit into a gallon-size Ziploc bag, and attach a gallon-size Ziploc bag to each note.

The teacher sends the bag home with the note. It is the only school instruction I have ever received that came with its own enforcement.

Her other ideas have the same quiet engineering. Number a hundred Hershey's Kisses with sticky dots, hide them around the classroom, and have the children find them and arrange them on a hundreds grid before eating them. Glue each child's photo onto an enlarged copy of a $100 bill and make a class book of what they would buy. Collect a hundred cans for charity and line them up in order before they go.

At P.S. 18 in Queens, students and staff celebrated by dressing up as hundred-year-olds, which in our house would have required no costume at all for one of the adults.

And in Georgia, a family photographed a hundred toy cars at home and sent the photograph. The cars stayed home. Nothing rolled under anything. Nobody built a tower.

This year the youngest has asked whether she can do the hundredth day again, for fun, with a hundred stickers. I said yes, on one condition. She asked what. I handed her a gallon-size Ziploc bag.