Grief Galaxy
Explore the alien emotions of grief and start to understand your feelings after a important person has died.
Jet off to space with Winston Bear and explore how grief can make you feel
These activity sheets will take you on a journey into the grief galaxy to explore how grief makes you feel and discover ways to cope when things feel difficult. To speak to someone about these activity sheets, you can call us on 08088 020 021 or chat with us in the corner of your screen. We’re here from 8am to 8pm on weekdays (excluding bank holidays).
Don’t worry, winstonswish.org is a trusted website, and when you download the worksheets below you will only download one worksheet at a time.
Your guide to downloading worksheets
If you’re using an iPhone or iPad, press ‘download the worksheet’ to view the worksheet. If you want to write or draw on it, press the share button (square with an arrow point up) and ‘Save to files’. Then you can open it on your device in ‘My files’.
If you’re using an Android phone…
If you’re using a laptop or computer, press ‘download the worksheet’ to view and edit the worksheet online. To download and save your worksheet, press the download icon (arrow pointing down) in the top right corner of your screen. The worksheet will save to your device and you can keep your drawings or writing.
These pages are for you to write or draw things that make you feel better when you feel sad, angry, worried, or other emotions. Starting here can help you with your feelings while doing these activity sheets.
This section is all about what happened around the day that your person died. If you don’t remember or aren’t sure what happened, ask an adult to help you or speak to someone at Winston’s Wish on our live chat in the corner of your screen.
Shock can feel like a black hole – maybe you feel frozen in time and confused about how to get out. These pages can help you understand what you were feeling straight after you found out your person had died. If you didn’t feel shocked, that’s okay, you can write or draw about a different feeling.
In this section, you can explore what has changed in your world now that your person has died. You might add something that made you feel worried, or something happy that happened. It’s okay to feel happy and have good days when you’re grieving.
It doesn’t matter if you have gone back to school already or not, you can use these pages to learn how you are/were feeling about school. Try to think of people who might help you and what you can look forward to at school as well.
It’s okay if you didn’t go to the funeral, you can write or draw about what happened by asking an adult to help. These pages are for you to express what you were feeling before and after the funeral day.
You’re going to create your very own planet! Grief is different for everyone, so your planet can have anything on it. Try to use your imagination and think about what grief looks and feels like for you.
No planet would be complete without some life forms. These pages are for you to name and write about your alien feelings. These could be feelings that already exist (anger, sadness, hope) or they could be completely new and unique to you.
Sometimes memories can pop up out of nowhere a bit like meteors in the night sky! It’s okay if those memories make you feel different alien feelings. You could use the alien feelings pages to try and explain how you feel when these memories crash into your brain.
Lots of things might happen in your life that you will mark as a ‘milestone’, these could be an anniversary of your person’s death, your/their birthday, making a new friend, going to a party. Sometimes these milestones might feel really hard without your person, so on these pages you can try to name how you feel and what might help you cope during those times.
These pages are for reflecting – looking back at life before your person died and for thinking about what has changed since. Your family, friends, things you enjoyed doing may have all changed or everything might be almost the same, both are okay.
Your grief might not feel like it gets any smaller, but your life and experiences around it will get bigger. Think about the special people and good things in your life.
One day, it will feel like you can look towards the future again. When you’re ready, use these pages to think about future dreams, goals, and things you would like to do. Moving forward to the future doesn’t mean you are forgetting your person, and you might like to think of ways to include their memory in your daily life.
Think about the people you have around you – it’s important to stay connected with those you trust. You might have a nice teacher at school, a family member or friend you can talk to, or maybe you have someone else you’d like to include. You can always talk to Winston’s Wish too, use our live chat in the corner of your screen.
