AUBURN - When a group of Seward Elementary School kindergarten students walk to their classroom for the first time in just over a week, they will receive “A Beary Big Welcome.”

That's because outside their classroom door is a poster display featuring a big brown bear whose friendly smile reveals blushing pink cheeks. The bear is peeking out from behind a cottage door, a wooden frame on which all the names of the students in the class are listed.

Auburn Enlarged City School District kindergarten teacher Marty Golding did not organize that display before school ended in June, nor did she wait to install it on the first day of school Sept. 8.

While her students were enjoying their last few weeks of summer, Golding spent hours taping that poster display on the hallway wall just outside her classroom. In fact, school started for her at the end of July, when she began to dust off the classroom tables and chairs, tape up posters to her wall and organize her game collection.

“You want to provide an exciting learning environment so the children are eager to participate to learn new things, so they're learning the foundation that will make them ready for school,” she said.

The days immediately before school starts is too hectic to get this done, so it's a time-honored tradition for teachers to start preparing for the new year during the dog days of summer.

“If you want to get your classroom set up, you have to go in on your own time,” Auburn teacher Seth Kennedy said. Kennedy, who teaches second grade at Genesee Street Elementary School, has put a good 20 hours just to get his classroom together, plus more time at home designing nametags for all his students.

Kennedy decorates his classroom in particular themes every year. This year's theme is Dr. Seuss, and so he spent the summer tracking down posters and displays that would augment that theme.

Though the Auburn school district, like many, provides some funding for classroom displays and supplies, that money only goes so far, especially during times of financial constraint.

Most teachers have summer jobs, said Kennedy, who has one of his own, and much of their earnings go towards their classrooms.

But he and many teachers out there are willing to use money from their own pockets because of how important such poster displays, games and other things are to developing children.

Both Kennedy and Seward Elementary second grade teacher Michele Tarby plaster their rooms with alphabet charts and posters that provide conflict resolution information as well as character education.

Not only do they keep the room from looking sterile, Kennedy said, but they also are functional.

Sherri Wakeham is doing something new this year. After previously teaching fifth grade at Seward, she is moving to kindergarten to lay the foundation for the school's newest group of students.

That change, however, comes with a price as some of Wakeham's supplies are a bit too mature for the 5-year-olds that will be using them.

She asked the school's custodians to lower the legs on her tables so they match the tiny chairs her students will be sitting on. She's weeding through her collection of posters and games and other supplies to find out what she has and what she needs to purchase. And in the days before school starts, she will be making shopping trips to stock up on the items she requires.

“It's their first experience in school,” Wakeham said of the thought she's putting into her classroom, “so you want it to be welcoming for them, and for that you have to decorate it nicely.”