China: The Five Elements collage

The Five Elements
A collage Activity

Religion: Chinese philosophy

Purpose: to reinforce and test familiarity with the five elements of Chinese philosophy

Cognitive Skills: application, analysis

Learning Styles: visual, sensing

Intelligences: visual-spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, naturalistic

Use: in classroom, as homework

For: individuals, pairs, small groups

Estimated time: 15 - 30 minutes (though reflective and global thinkers might want to take more time as they think about and stumble across images as they go about their daily life)

Materials needed: paper or poster board, glue, scissors, old magazines, junk mail ads, clip art and other sources for images, marker(s) to label posters (ribbon, yarn, or colorful tape optional).

Note: can be done in front of the TV, or listening to music

The Activity:

Use a different piece of craft paper for each of the classic "five elements" identified by Chinese philosophy (earth, water, fire, wood, metal). You may choose to use appropriately colored paper for each element (see Website references for suggestions regarding appropriate colors for each element)
Locate, group and paste images representing each element onto the papers.
Label each collection of images appropriately.
Five pages total, each displaying a different element. You may want to connect the pages in some way - e.g., by linking them together using ribbon

Web resources:

YIN AND YANG AND THE FIVE ELEMENTS

Alternative possibilities: any topic which lends itself to categories (such as kinds of animals, things associated with various countries or famous people, historical time periods, etc.)