The Girl and the Sun children’s book empowers individuals to let the wise leader inside their heart guide their actions.
Offering 3 playful metaphors, it teaches little (and big) ones how to develop self-awareness and self-regulation in order to cultivate kindness to oneself and others. Please use these free worksheets to explore the sun, cloud and rainbow metaphors as they apply to your own life, as well as the lives of the little ones with whom you read the book. Before using the worksheets, please read:
Self-Awareness & Responsibility
Let your heart be your leader. The cloud will work very hard to be in charge but it is a terrible leader as it leads from fear. When you let your sun lead, it shines through your cloud and takes charge of your thoughts. Your thoughts then emerge from your heart and are based on love. Loving thoughts allow you to you feel equal to others, connected to the world around you, and free to be yourself and let your true colours shine. When your true colours shine, you are inspired to bring yourself forth in this world and make a difference through your creations.
free worksheet on self-regulation, kindness, and self-esteem
Identity, Values, & Purpose
Paint the world with your rainbow. When you decide to let your sun lead, all the energy you have been putting into your cloud returns back to you and beams out from your sun. These sun beams then shine through your cloud and turn your fearful thoughts into loving ones. Then you feel free to paint the world with your rainbow. Instead of asking what life can give you, you are ready to give to the world. You feel empowered to make a difference in your unique way and let your true colours shine.
free worksheet for kids on identity, self-awareness, and values
Respect of Self, Others & World
Question your thoughts. Your cloud floats above your head and is in charge of your fearful thoughts. It is not who you are because you are your sun. When you hear judging thoughts that make you feel worse or better than someone else and when you are worrying about the past or future, this is your cloud talking. You don’t have to believe the fearful thoughts from your cloud. In fact, most of the time they are not true at all. If you connect with your sun and observe your thoughts as something separate from who you are, then you will start to question their truth. When you don’t believe your thoughts they lose power over you and you feel free to be yourself.
free worksheet on respecting self, others and the world by healing anxiety, and stressful, judging beliefs and thoughts
Emotional Health
Allow all of your feelings to be here. Your sun is the presence behind all your emotions. Your sun holds a big enough space for all the colours of the rainbow to be there. Anger will arise, teach you your boundaries, and then pass. Happiness will emerge, guide you to your heart’s passions, and then leave. Sadness will come in, help you release pain as you bump up against the difficulties in life and then will exit. No emotion, even happiness, stays forever. To try to be happy all the time is impossible as a new wave of emotion will always appear. A rainbow wouldn’t be a rainbow if it was made up of just one colour.
free worksheet on emotional health and self-regulation
Mindfulness & Gratitude
Dance in the beauty of the world. When you live in the present moment and appreciate the beauty in all the little moments that make up life, you feel connected to yourself, others and nature. Connection brings contentment and allows you to feel free to be yourself.
free worksheet on mindfulness, gratitude, and heart-centred living
Self Awareness, Values & Identity
Let your true colours shine. Each colour of the rainbow expresses a different emotion. And your emotions contain important messages for you. They reveal your personal values. Your values are the things in life that are deeply important to you. The more you know your values, the more you know who you are. The more you know who you are, the easier it is to stay true to yourself. Staying true to yourself can be especially important when your cloud or others are attempting to sway you away from your heart.
free worksheet on self-awareness, values, and identity
Laugh.
Laugh at your cloud. Once you begin to observe the thoughts that come from your cloud, they can start to sound ridiculous. And ridiculous is funny. Laughing at our thoughts means that we are connecting with our deeper self and recognizing that our judging thoughts aren’t true.
Kindness & Empathy
Everyone has a sun. Even if it seems as though someone’s sun is gone, remember that everyone has a sun and it can never go away. Sometimes someone’s cloud may be so big that it is difficult to see their sun but that doesn’t mean it is gone. The more we see the sun in that person, the more it can emerge.
Generosity & Helping Others
When you give love, you get love. The most powerful way to connect with your sun is to give to another person. If you are struggling with an overbearing cloud, step outside of yourself and see how you can help another: volunteer at a community event, raise money to donate to a cause you care about, stand up for someone who is being harassed at school, write a letter or thank you card to someone, give a gift to someone even when it is not their birthday, compliment and encourage a friend even if you are feeling a little jealous, ask someone if they need to talk and listen to what they have to say.
Feeling Emotions
The cloud is like a scared little child. The cloud becomes louder when it is afraid to feel an uncomfortable feeling that is bubbling up inside of you. It thinks that if it yells judging thoughts in your ear, then it will distract you from feeling the uncomfortable feeling. Its goal is to pull you out of your body where your emotions live and bring you to your mind to escape. The more you allow your sun to take charge and nurture you as you feel your feelings, the safer your cloud feels. When your cloud feels safe, its need to speak lessens.
Make decisions from love not fear.
You know what you need. The cloud makes decisions based on fear. When you listen to your cloud and believe what it says, notice how you tend to feel more anxious, fearful, stressed or angry. The sun is in charge of your intuition. It helps guide you to make decisions aligned with the values important to your heart. It helps you make decisions based on love. When you listen to your sun, notice how you tend to feel more empowered, connected, kind and loving.
Make mistakes.
Please remember you will make mistakes. You will continuously make mistakes and let your cloud lead. This is normal. You will never let your sun lead 100% of the day. The goal is not to be perfect. The goal is to develop a strong muscle that helps you return to your sun after a mistake is made. The process sounds like this: “Oops! I let my cloud lead...back to my sun.” “Oops! I let my cloud lead...back to my sun.” The stronger the muscle you develop, the more you will live from your sun.
““My students now independently use the sun and cloud metaphors to deal with their conflicts in more calm and respectful ways.””
for more resources visit ashley’s parenting blog
In order to be present and patient with our kids, we must continually be present and patient with our self. We must be there for our self as our emotions arise. We must examine our beliefs. We must be a loving parent to our self.
Just because we are an adult, does not mean we have lost our need for daily support. We are all on a journey. The more we understand our own journey, the more we can be there for the children in our lives as they travel there’s.
““In The Girl and The Sun, Ashley McIntosh introduces the complex world of our mind in a simple, friendly & easy to understand way. This book teaches the importance of learning healthy mental habits at a young age. Inner peace will spread when children grow up understanding that they are not their thoughts, they are love!””
