Moreland Term Week 5 2019

Wednesday was a very creative day on the program as the students attended a hip hop writing workshop at Oxygen Youth Services that was ran by a very talented hip-hop producer and rapper named Motley. The students had an opportunity to get an inside look on how rappers produce and create their lyrics and songs. To begin the workshop, Motley performed one of his songs live as the students watched intently at his brilliant performance. The students were very excited and attentive throughout the workshop as Motley explained to them the basic principles of rap. In addition, Motley taught the students how to write lyrics which incorporated rhymes, story-telling and flow. It was very important for the students to pay attention as they would all be making an original song together with the help of Motley producing the beats. This task was very unique as it gave the students an opportunity to express themselves through rap music which is very popular among young people. Additionally, creating a rap song encouraged the students to be highly self-reflective as well as creative especially during the song-writing process. After the students completed writing their lines for the song, they had the opportunity to record themselves rapping with the guidance of Motley. In the end, the song was completed and it sounded great! The students should all be proud of themselves as they showed confidence, creativity and courage in making a song so vulnerable, raw and powerful!

Thursday was a mixture of physical and intellect as the students participated in indoor rock climbing at Hardrock in the morning and visited the State Library of Victoria towards the afternoon. To begin the day, the team all met up at Flinders street station and travelled together to Hardrock with the use of public transport. We arrived at Hardrock and all the students seemed keen and excited to challenge themselves through climbing the toughest and highest walls. We were greeted by our wonderful host named Lloyd who guided us through the safety procedures of rock climbing to ensure that we were all safe and adequate to begin climbing. Each student participated and gave their best efforts as they climbed some very high walls. It was great seeing all the students giving their best and not giving up as they were prepared to climb again if they failed the first time. Additionally, all the students showed great support as they all cheered and helped each other climb up some difficult walls. In the afternoon, the students had lunch at Melbourne Central food court before visiting the State Library of Victoria. Here, the students learnt how to access the public computers as they were given thirty-minutes of free time on the computers. After, the students went upstairs to explore “The world of book” tour and “Ned Kelly” tour which was hosted by the State Library. The students were given a task to find three interesting facts from each of the tours to present to the class on Friday morning.

Friday was a very interesting day filled with many fun activities on the program. We started of the day with a game of volleyball which was very fun and at the same time competitive. The students showed great teamwork and persistence as both teams fought hard to earn points for their team. After volleyball, the students presented their three interesting facts about the two tours they explored yesterday. The interesting facts were about Ned Kelly and the history of books and their origin. The students then worked on their community bike project where they learnt the skills on how to teach younger students how to fix and ride a bike. After having their lunch, we all drove to Melbourne Polytechnic to participate in our landscaping TAFE tester. We met with Tim and got stuck straight into it. The students were taught how to lay brick pavers and the precise skill of how to measure and align these correctly. The students did a magnificent job and Tim was impressed with their workmanship.