Los Niños Primero (“Kids First”)

Los Niños Primero (“Kids First”) is a summer educational program for Latino preschool children who live in Sandy Springs, Georgia. This highly successful program has been serving the needs of these at-risk children since 2001. For the third year in a row, over one hundred children are expected to participate in the 2008 program. Last year that the length of the program was extended from two- to three-weeks.

Los Niños Primero is incorporated and has not for-profit status. The Los Niños Primero Educational Program is conducted on the campus of Mt. Vernon Presbyterian School and has full access to these accredited facilities.

Who Are We?
Los Niños Primero is a nonprofit preschool educational program that is language-rich and academically sound.  Our low pupil-teacher ratio allows us to create a fun-filled environment in which children ages three to six can master pre-academic skills, learn classroom routines, develop English vocabulary, and get a jump-start on knowledge and abilities they will need to be successful in school. Our talented, certified, bilingual, bicultural teachers meet the children where they are: honoring their culture and language while infusing the program with art, academics, motor skills training, and cultural awareness. Music is taught by a certified music therapist. All this learning takes place while the students are being immersed in the English language.

 
Our Director: Maritza Morelli is a highly talented child psychologist who brings insight, enthusiasm, and expertise to this program. Her knowledge of the bilingual child’s development and her intimate knowledge of the homes, preschools and elementary schools where these children live and learn provide Los Niños Primero with powerful leadership and direction.  Her vision of creating a year-round program and touching an even greater number of children’s lives is clear and unwavering, and the steady growth the program has experienced attests to her guidance. 

 Why we help
Of all the Latino children in Georgia who are enrolled in public education, 47% drop out of school before they graduate.  Many of these students entered school with no English language skills and a lack of the basic knowledge and skills required for school readiness.  Our goal is to improve this dropout rate by preparing Latino preschool children so they can “hit the ground running” when they begin to attend “real” school. 

Components of the program include:

• Academic readiness
• Motor skills development training
• Speech and language screening
• English language learning
• Appropriate social and behavioral awareness
• Transportation to and from the program
• Ethnically appropriate snacks and lunch
• Art and cultural enrichment
• Music taught by a certified music therapist.

This is a three-week day camp co-sponsored by our church and school especially for Latino preschoolers in our neighborhood. Begun in 2001, it has helped many children get a leg-up before beginning school.

Please visit the Los Niños Primero web site.

Also visit our Los Niños Primero Photo Gallery for 2004, 2005, and 2006

and our Los Niños Primero 2007 Gallery.