Maggie's Monet POW Answer
The problem
First I counted the trees.  Then I wrote fifty-five dots.  Then I counted them three times.  I started from 55 for the second group.  So I went 55, 56, 57, 58, 59 . . . And then I did it four times and got up to 212.  My Dad said that wasn't the right answer.  I think I counted one too less.

Then I tried a different way.  I tried to make dots for four groups of 55 but I got tired on the second group.

So I tried another way.  I wrote 55 above 55 and added them together by carrying the numbers the way that my Mom showed me last summer.  The answer was 110.  Then I did 110 plus 110, because now I had two groups of 110 and 110.  That added up to 220.  My Dad said that was right.

Then I did the bonus.  First, I asked my Dad to mark 500 boxes on graph paper.  He said that he couldn't fit 500 boxes on our graph paper.

Then I tried a different way.  I wrote four 100's on a paper and ten 10's.  I made ten 10's because they made 100, too.  So I had 5 100's on my paper.  Then I took away 2 of the 10's, because that made 20, because the paint and canvas together were 20.  So I took away another 20 and 2 100's, because he paid for the trees.  Then, I counted up the remaining numbers, and it came to 260.