Color Emotional Posters for Children: Real Photo Posters and Strategy Posters

Helping children recognise feelings is often the first step toward helping them manage big emotions. These color emotional posters for children use four familiar colours—Blue, Red, Yellow and Green—to make emotional vocabulary more visual, clear and approachable.

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Rather than expecting children to explain a complicated feeling on the spot, a feelings chart for kids gives them a starting point.

They can point to a colour, notice a matching face, name a feeling and then choose a supportive next step. This makes the posters especially useful for young learners, students with communication differences, autistic children, ESL/EAL learners and children who benefit from direct emotional regulation visuals.

The set is designed for classrooms, homes, therapy spaces and school counselling rooms. Display the posters together as a colourful SEL poster wall, add them to a calm corner, or use one page at a time during a social emotional learning lesson.

Four Colour Groups for Naming Feelings

Each “When I am…” poster introduces six recognisable feelings through real people and clear visual examples.

The Blue poster represents low-and-slow feelings such as sad, tired, lonely, bored, disappointed and unwell. The Red poster supports conversations about stronger feelings including angry, furious, frustrated, overwhelmed, panicked and out of control.

The Yellow poster includes higher-energy feelings such as excited, silly, nervous, worried, restless and unsure. Finally, the Green poster highlights ready-to-learn feelings: happy, calm, proud, focused, confident and safe.

These emotions posters for classroom use real faces to help children notice body language and facial expressions. They are ideal for feelings check-ins, morning meetings, class discussions, visual schedules, emotion identification activities and one-to-one support. They can also support self-awareness, emotional literacy and the language children need to explain how they feel.

Matching Coping Strategies Children Can See

Every colour poster has a matching strategy poster, transforming the display from a simple feelings poster into a practical coping skills for kids resource.

Blue strategies include taking a break, talking to an adult, holding a comfort item, listening to calm music, reading quietly and resting.

Red strategies provide helpful options for intense feelings, including taking a breath, asking an adult for help, taking space, squeezing a fidget, moving the body and counting down.

Yellow strategies support children who feel wiggly, worried or unsure. They include slow belly breathing, asking for help, checking what comes next, using a fidget, taking a movement break and finding a quiet space.

Green strategies encourage children to keep using their calm, ready state through learning, kind words, helping friends, making good choices, caring for their body and celebrating effort.

These calming strategies posters work beautifully in a calm down corner, regulation station, sensory space, classroom wellbeing display or school counselor office. They give children visual choices for self-regulation, mindfulness, problem solving and positive classroom behaviour.

Flexible Visual Supports for School and Home

This resource includes real-photo posters, colourful clipart posters and printer-friendly blackline versions. The variety makes it easy to choose the format that best suits your learners and printing needs.

Use the blackline pages as feelings colouring sheets, send them home for families, add them to a social emotional learning workbook or let children create their own personalised emotion regulation tools.

The colourful versions make a bright, meaningful addition to preschool, kindergarten, primary, special education and homeschool SEL spaces.

These visual supports for autism, AAC learners and early communicators are also useful because children can connect a word, colour, face and possible strategy all in one place.

Premium Download: Color Emotion Posters for Children

This premium download includes the complete four-colour poster set: Blue, Red, Yellow and Green feeling posters, plus their matching strategy posters.

Every page is provided in real-photo, colourful clipart and blackline formats.

You can grab this resource in store or in the premium download section, once you unlock your membership, the red button appears and you’re able to download it directly from here.

Use these printable emotion posters, SEL classroom decor, feelings visuals, coping strategy cards and classroom mental health supports.

Click below to download the resource:

Building a more supportive space where children can recognise emotions, communicate needs and practise helpful choices, one color at a time.

Grab a Free Feelings Check-In Poster

Need a simple visual for quick emotion check-ins? This free Zones of Regulation feelings check-in poster is a helpful classroom visual for talking about energy levels, feelings, and regulation throughout the day.

It is ideal for morning meetings, calm corners, counseling sessions, or one-on-one conversations. Children can point to the color that best matches how they feel before finding words to explain it.

Print and display it near your emotional regulation tools for an easy daily check-in.