Our Favorite Yoto Cards

Since we got our first Yoto player in 2021, I’ve gotten lots of questions about our favorite Yoto cards.

There are so many options and Yoto cards range from short picture book cards to longer novels, music and movement cards, and soothing night noise cards. It can be overwhelming to pick a few to order!

We own a LOT of Yoto cards because I get referral points every time someone buys a Yoto Player through my links. (Use the code AFF-EVERYDAY10 to get 10% off the original Yoto Player or the Yoto Mini for first-time customers!) We haven’t tried ALL of them, but we own the majority of the story ones (we’ve ordered very few of the non-story ones).

Plus, I bought a Yoto Club membership (mainly for the free shipping because my points didn’t do me a lot of good if I had to pay the $10 of shipping every single time and so the 10% discount and the free shipping was reason enough to buy it, with the two cards a month as an extra bonus.

So we are basically swimming in Yoto cards.

Each of my four girls has their own Yoto Player (Tally has a regular Yoto Player and the three older girls each have a Yoto Mini), plus card cases to store the cards in.

None of the Yoto cards belong to a specific member of the family, so they swap the cards around pretty frequently but having cases means they aren’t floating around all the time or getting lost too easily.

Here are each of my girls’ favorite Yoto cards by age and also my team members’ favorite Yoto cards for their kids:

Our Favorite Yoto Cards

Analese’s Daughter’s Favorite Yoto Cards (AGE 12)

• Holes – This one was fun because she not only listened to it multiple times, but she read the book and we watched the movie together. My 9 year old son also loved this one!
• Boxcar Children Collection – This is a great collection and a really easy listen. All three of my children love this series. The only complaint they have, is Yoto doesn’t go beyond the fourth book. They want more!!
• Biggest Ideas – She loves to learn how things work and she soaked up every last minute of this collection.
• Esperanza Rising – The first time she listened to this was with her cousin who came to visit. I would find them squirreled up somewhere, multiple times per day, trying to get it all in before our guests had to leave.

Ella’s Favorite Yoto Cards (Age 11)

• The Week Junior Podcast. Ella is the only one of my children who really listens to podcasts on her Yoto Player, but she LOVES this weekly news podcast and often has interesting things to share with the family that she learned from it!
• Stories from Shakespeare. This is a great collection of ten of Shakespeare’s most famous stories, narrated by Juliet Stevenson and Michael Sheen.
• Horrible Histories Collection. If you have a child who loves the I Survived books or the Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales, this is a great collection.
• The Secret Garden. This one is a no brainer classic.

Ani’s Favorite Yoto Cards (Age 9)

• BrainBots – Biggest Ideas Collection. Ani is a non-fiction lover and she dialed right into this seven card collection of stories about famous inventions.
• The Narwhal & Jelly Collection. Our family fell in love with the audio versions of Narwhal and Jelly a couple of years ago on a road trip, so when they were available as Yoto cards, I snapped them right up. (Full review here)
• My First Classical Music Collection. This is the only set of music Yoto cards I’ve bought and I was delighted when Ani mentioned them as some of her favorites!
• The Claude Collection. This set of short stories (each one is about 20 minutes) has been a huge hit with my girls. The antics of this goofball dog are endless entertaining.

Analese’s Son’s Favorite Yoto Cards (AGE 9)

• Terrible Two Series – This series has been read, listened to and re-listened to over and over. He gets a kick out of all of the pranks and loves the different voices used in the audio.
• Chitty Chitty Bang Bang – He loves a good adventure and this one is not lacking. He listened to this in one day
• Roald Dahl collection – If you can’t tell by now, he loves anything wacky and funny and these books are the best for that. He has listened to them multiple times.
• Horrible Histories – He is also very smitten with history and these historical stories (all about an hour), complete with blood gushing sound effects have been a huge hit with him.

Star’s Favorite Yoto Cards (Age 7)

• The Claude Collection. And. .  as I mentioned, everyone loves Claude.
• Disney Junior Novels. There are two versions of most of the Disney stories – there are shorter stories and then there are the Junior Novels (which are about 2-3 hours long instead of 30-40 minutes). Star loves the longer versions.
• The Hotel Flamingo Collection. I didn’t know the Hotel Flamingo books before we got them as Yoto cards but they’re listened to on repeat around here now.

Analese’s Daughter’s Favorite Yoto Cards (AGE 7)

• The Claude Collection – This one has been mentioned multiple times, probably because it is that good. Sir Bobblysock…it’s just too good!
• Fairy Tales First – She loves listening to these fairy tales as she goes to sleep. All of your classics like Jack and the Beanstalk, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, etc. Each story is about 10-15 min long, so listening to one as she gets into bed is perfect!
• Frozen – It’s fun for her to listen to a story she is already familiar with and this one has been listened to A LOT!

Kelsey’s Son’s Favorite Yoto Cards (AGE 6)

• Narwhal and Jelly – If there is one card that both my 3 and 6-year-old will listen to together it is the Narwhal and Jelly card. It is sweet and wholesome, yet so silly. But I wouldn’t expect anything less from a story about a narwhal and jellyfish who are best friends. Plus, it is full cast with music and sound effects!
• Ladybird Audio Adventures – I have a Kindergartner who is an avid nonfiction consumer, and if it is science or history related in any way…he is all in! We have several volumes of the Ladybird Audio Adventures and he will listen to them on repeat! Each card typically follows an adventurer and an extremely intelligent Raven named Missy as they go back in time, or use a shrink ray to learn about things like castles, worms, dinosaurs, and Ancient Rome – and all in a British accent.
• BBC Children’s Classics: The Wind and the Willows – He loves this sweet classic story about all the silly antics of Toad and all of his friends. It’s filled with music and songs that he sings along with.

Tally’s Favorite Yoto Cards (Age 5)

• Winnie the Pooh Collection. This was one of the very first Yoto cards we got and it’s still a favorite around here.
• Three Little Pigs. This is a fun retelling of the classic fairy tale – it’s about nine minutes long.
• Ladybird Audio Adventures. This collection of non-fiction stories are phenomenal and all my girls have enjoyed them, although Tally loves them the most.

Kelsey’s Son’s Favorite Yoto Cards (AGE 3)

• Row Your Boat and other Pre-School Songs – My 3-year old is obsessed with this Yoto card, he walks around the house listening to all of the songs and knows them all by heart. It has 15 classics including: “The Wheels on the Bus”, “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes”, and “Five Little Ducks” – and an additional instrumental track of each song. I always try to offer a story card to him, but he is a major music guy!
• Sing with Raffi – Still working on being able to sit and listen through an entire story, but he will listen to music cards non-stop! “Shake Your Sillies Out” and “Apples and Bananas” are a few favorites!

What Yoto cards have been hits at your house? Or do you have questions about any of the Yoto cards? I’m happy to answer!

If you liked this post about our favorite Yoto cards, you might like these posts too:

• How to introduce your child to audiobooks
• Tips for a positive read aloud experience
• How my children listen to audiobooks

Photos by Heather Mildenstein