When my son was in kindergarten and learning to count, he came home with instructions to gather 100 objects and then use them to practice counting. Suggested items included playing cards, toothpicks and pennies but I had a better idea: Hot Wheels Cars. We scoured the house for them, first emptying the plastic storage display that hangs from his bedroom door and then moving on to the toy box and then various drawers of his dresser and desk. The pile in the front room soon grew to amazing proportions and as the search widened to include all the nooks and crannies of the house, still the cars turned up in ones and twos, some under the couch, still others in the kitchen drawers and even a few amid the dust bunnies behind the TV. When, after about an hour, we had gathered them all together, we lined them up in neat rows on the carpet and counted to almost 170. (Read More…)