resources for raising bilingual kids in Australia

Does anyone know of a group or a resource for raising bilingual children in Melbourne?

Of course I can find lots of information online, but I'd be interested in finding out about any local groups that meet in Melbourne, or any Australian-specific resources out there.

Our first baby is due in April, and we will be raising all our kids English/Spanish bilingual, as we live in Melbourne and my husband is Spanish. Which is going to be interesting, as my Spanish is currently crummy (time to get out that discarded textbook...).

From what I have read it is better if only the native speaker speaks the other language. So if you speak english and your DH speaks spanish then they will have no problem learning but if you speak non-fluent spanish and/or your DH speaks some english and some spanish it is more confusing for them. You can look at the playgroup australia website as there may be some bilingual playgroups near you. Otherwise you may find a kids language class. In Brisbane there are alphatykes who do teach spanish. Not sure is Melbourne though.

Hi,
We spoke Italian and English to our children when they were infants and the older 3 speak fluent Italian. We are doing the same with our youngest now too.

All the best,
Dianne

You should be able to speak to your public librarian about sourcing some good age-appropriate books in your second language. Most states have a system where LOTE books are circulated from library to library from the State Library, so your library should be able to get some more if they don't already have them (same goes for DVDs and CDs too).

Thanks for the suggestions, everyone.

It'll be great if we can get books in Spanish from the local library. They used to have a small collection of Spanish-language books, but they culled them out a couple of years back. I didn't know there might be a way to borrow them from other library systems that have more Spanish books (in the north of Melbourne there would be quite a lot, for example).

Yes if you contact Playgroups Australia you will be put in touch with Spanish speaking Playgroups/resources...