What to wear if you are a Canadian teacher

Today was the 100th day of school for my students and I. We celebrated by counting to 100 many times throughout the day and by having an outdoor carnival. My colleagues and I had set up different stations that the students could play at and they had a blast. We were outside for about an hour.

We are lucky at our school because we (teachers) are only on recess duty once a week, but our recess lasts 45 minutes, so when it's cold you need to be dressed really warm. This is the whole point of my post. Knowing that we have to be outside for long stretches of time once a week, we all decided to buy the very best winter clothing we could get our hands on. For us this means a North Face Arctic Parka (black or grey (or brown - not pictured here)) and Sorel boots. Obviously, all other 'normal' rules of winter dressing still apply - layers are a must! So underneath our matching jackets, we all had two or three shirts, and we also had several layers of pants (including snow pants). Tuques (that's a warm hat for non-Canadians), mittens and scarves are accessories, but choose them wisely because when you play in the snow with five-year-olds, things get wet pretty fast!

Notice the matching jackets and boots!