in reply to counter of files? something else?

one of the monks here has a signature that says in essence: the best way to start such a task is to think how you would do it by hand.

So, try to explain the task to a (possibly pre-school) kid, who can count, read/write letters and digits:

how should he/she go about doing this for you with 50 files sheets of paper?
To make the task easier, the paper is appropriately sized :-)