27 of the Best Yoto Cards for Kids (sorted by age group)
Our Yoto player, Yoto Mini, and set of Yoto cards is the number one favorite toy in our household, and it has been for two years now. Our kids are currently 2, 4, and 7, and it’s equally loved by all of them, so the Yoto age range is really wide! Yoto has lots of great stuff for older children all the way down to toddlers, and their free content is top notch. What’s more, I can’t picture my oldest (a lover of stories) outgrowing this gadget for several years.
It’s been a while since I wrote that post, and our collection of all the best Yoto cards has grown since then. I wanted to share an updated and more complete list of cards you NEED in your kids’ collection!
I wrote a full review of the original Yoto audio player here and even touched on some of the best Yoto cards, and I’ve also written a full Yoto Mini review. We love our Yoto mini player even more than the original Yoto player, although you can’t go wrong. Check out my post to learn more about the main differences between them.
Yoto products are a great value, too, especially given how many hours of entertainment it provides are family. We are Yoto obsessed around here!
I may earn a small commission from Amazon when you click on any of my affiliate links. This doesn’t change your purchase price, and I never recommend products without trying them first.
Where to Buy Yoto Cards – Retailer Review
I shop a lot on Amazon. I’m not proud of it, because it’s always more fun to support small businesses. But small business shopping is not always convenient in a pinch! After all, Amazon is fast, and many of us already pay for the shipping. You can buy single cards on Amazon, and I’ve included a link to do so on many of these cards. That option makes a lot of sense if you’re just dipping your toe into the Yoto card world, and you only want to buy a single card or two.
However, I’ve learned that it’s actually not cheaper to shop for Yoto cards on Amazon in the long run. The Yoto store has MANY more cards, and you’re sure to find plenty your kids will love. Amazon has fewer. And while you have to pay for shipping, Amazon retailers are building the shipping cost into their card sale, making it a wash.
If you’re buying several cards, you’ll come out ahead to purchase directly from Yoto. Plus, Yoto has notoriously great customer service.
What’s more, the Yoto club is a really great deal and worth exploring if your kids have caught the Yoto bug. I like to treat our kids to new cards for Valentine’s Day, Easter, birthdays and any other holiday. It’s usually a pretty affordable way to put a smile on their faces. Read more about Yoto Club below.
Is a Yoto Club membership worth it? Updated 2023
That depends on how much you and your kids love adding new cards to your collection. Much like an Amazon prime membership, what once seemed like a frivolous expense is now treated as a budget must-have for our family. After all, for all the hours my kids spend listening to stories as they take their baths, tidy their rooms and get dressed, they could be whining and complaining. Instead, having all the best Yoto cards has made some of our least favorite chores much more fun.
Here’s how Yoto Club works:
You pay either $99 a year or $9.99 a month.
In exchange, you get:
- free shipping
- 10% discount on everything from players to accessories and cards (this even stacks on top of other deals)
- 2 fun Yoto cards each month
These Yoto cards come in the form of credits to your account. You can let them accrue for up to 12 months, or you can purchase them as soon as your monthly credit appears.
In October of 2022, for example, you’ll have around 100 cards to choose from in the store!
This brings the cost of your 24 cards annually down to $4.12 each before you even factor in shipping or the discount, which is much lower than the average-priced card in their store.
I think it’s a great deal, if your family loves the toy half as much as we do. The Yoto app is always easy to use.
One important thing to remember is that if you lose your physical cards, you can always access everything in the Yoto app and play them from your phone into the Yoto, which acts like a bluetooth speaker. You can always load any purchased audio content onto blank cards.
Where to Buy Used Yoto Cards
I think Yoto is too new to have produced a major retailer landing spot for buying and selling used Yoto cards. You can find a few here or there on Ebay, but the deals aren’t great and most are new cards being sold my independent sellers.
Your best bet is to search Facebook for “Yoto” to find a buy-sell-trade group for Yoto cards. There are currently two groups (see here and here) with thousands of members each. There is a lot of activity in these groups!
Excellent Yoto Cards for All Ages
You should check out my big review of the Yoto player, because it’s got a whole section about how to create a make-your-own Yoto card. Check out the subheading “How do you record on a Yoto?”
Blank cards have endless potential and can be targeted perfectly for your kiddo. Check out the subheading “How do you record on a Yoto?”
The Make Your Own Card is great for both parents and kids. In our family, we use this card so that extended family members can record bedtime stories and songs for our middle kid. But I’ve also heard about older, creative and theatrical kids recording stuff for friends, siblings, or even themselves.
It’s so simple to do, and it’s such a special feature of the Yoto player.
This is a collection of animal music, performed by the Slovak Symphony Orchestra. The tracks are a really wonderful way to expose young kids to classical music. I particularly love the introductions to each song.
My kids love Story Shed, which is a 3.5 hour collection of stories that update regularly as a podcast. The host of the podcast is really fantastic, as he’s an elementary school teacher who just really GETS kids. I often listen in during their weekday breakfast before school. He always makes them laugh. Story Shed is included in the Starter Pack, but it’s super cheap, anyway!
They got rid of the Yoto kids radio card that was originally included in the Starter Pack and is pictured below, but they have a new radio card now. There’s also a preschool version of the Fun Kids Radio.
See the Fun Kids Radio schedule here.
Best Yoto Cards for Toddlers
One of my favorite things about the Yoto player is that even toddlers can successfully play with it! It is perfect for little hands. The card slot is so much simpler than what you’ll find on any other audio player.
Some toddlers love story cards, but my little one loves the Yoto daily podcast, nature sounds, and nursery rhymes.
There’s some really great cards for toddlers that build literacy skills and phonemic awareness. Here are some of our favorites!
Beatles Songs by Caspar Babypants
I love this one, and so do my kids. Beatles songs are just catchy, and Caspar Babypants does a funky fresh cover of them just for little kids. Dance away, tots!
The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Other Stories by Eric Carle –
Every kid should be exposed to this story. I love that they’ve gotten more mileage out of this classic tale by adding more Eric Carle stories, stretching the audio to a full 26 minutes. That’s just perfect to put many kids to sleep at night!
We like this one because the run time is only 13 minutes, making it a perfect off-to-bed card for little bitty ones. The songs are sung sweetly and acoustically. It’s all the most popular nursery rhymes for toddlers, including Incy Wincy Spider, The Grand Old Duke of York, and Row Your Boat.
This is another winner for capturing the attention of wiggly, dancing toddlers. It’s very similar to the Nursery Rhymes listed above, but it’s 68 minutes of audio. That makes it not a great bedtime choice for our littlest family member, but she loves to dance and play with this one playing. Since our kids are American, it’s fun to hear a mix of super familiar tracks and more British ones that we’ve not heard.
The best thing about this one is that there’s a corresponding image on the screen to help kids learn the 100 words. These are familiar words like home, fruit, and school. One note: these words are spoken with a British accent, which may be a relevant point for US buyers. This card is only available as part of a starter pack on Amazon.
This is a sweet little card for Disney loving families. It’s the perfect length for toddlers with short attention spans, as each of the six stories adds up to a run time of only 16 minutes. It includes the Lion King, Jungle Book, Bambi, Dumbo, Alice in Wonderland and 101 Dalmations. This makes it a great card for animal lovers, too.
Best Yoto Cards for 3 and 4 Year Olds
These Yoto cards are great for kids with growing attention spans who are discovering a love of stories. There are so many great options for this age group, but I chose some of our personal favorites.
Our little guy had a hard time sleeping at this age, because his separation anxiety really ramped up. That’s common for younger children, and having lots of content to choose from can be helpful as you figure out what works best to help them settle down at night. The sleep radio that’s included with your Yoto really helped the most because the stories would be too engaging for him.
This is a bedtime card, and it’s so soothing. The run time is 33 minutes, and there are six bedtime stories to enjoy.
This is a classic familiar story by Nancy Tillman. If you’re not familiar with this story, it’s a New York Times bestseller that makes kids feel so special and loved. Our kids have this book on their shelves, so they can visualize the beautiful illustrations from the book as they listen. One downside to this card is that it’s only 6 minutes, so factor that into your cost considerations.
This is a pack of 10 cards, so it makes a special gift! These Llama Llama books are so cute, and it’s great for developing kids phonemic awareness. Rhyming is important for literacy development! The 10 cards add up to a total of 38 minutes, so each card is a quick listen.
This card is a fantastic choice for bedtime, and it entertains my 7 year old, too. You get almost 4 hours of audio on one card, and it’s a very mellow listen. My middle child is 4 and sometimes has a hard time settling down at bedtime. This one does the trick at keeping him in his dark room until true sleepiness sets in.
Yoto also sent out an email letting us know that the Winnie the Pooh card was the most popular one of 2022, with kids clocking 411,748 hours in the Hundred-Acre-Wood.
Mrs. H Sings: Songs, Dance, and Mischief
This is NOT a bedtime card. It’s too much fun for that! This is a 39 minute audio full of singalong songs by Mrs. H. As far as I can tell, she’s like the Laurie Berkner of London. My little American kids love her music.
The 90s baby in our family couldn’t resist buying this card for their nieces and nephew, because what 90s kid doesn’t have fabulous memories of Babar? This is a sweet little Babar story is an abridged version of the full story. The audio is read by Miriam Margolyes, who has a wonderfully soothing voice.
This card gets LOTS of play in our home. My 7 year old also finds it delightful, but my 4 year old listens to this one on repeat. His favorite is the one about a monster under the bed. There are 1 hour and 16 minutes of audio on this card.
Best Yoto Cards for 5 – 7 Year Olds
These are the best yoto cards for little ones who have probably seen their fair share of Disney movies. They’ve got a longer attention span, and more mature or creative kids in this age group may be ready for some of the fantastic Roald Dahl stories, too!
My own daughter wakes up pretty easily and loves to start her day with Yoto radio or Yoto Daily. She loves the predictability of waking up each day to Jake’s podcast. I’ve listened in and been pleased with the quality of the content. She learns a lot over breakfast every day without even realizing it.
The Disney Classics Collection
If you’ve got a Disney princess lover, this is a wonderful addition to your Yoto collection. While this is a pricier deck of cards, you get 6 Disney stories spread across almost 4 hours of audio. This particular set has three princess stories: Frozen, the Little Mermaid, and Sleeping Beauty. Also included are Pinocchio, 101 Dalmations and Dumbo. There are multiple readers on this card set, too.
The Roald Dahl books may be some of my favorites. They are so silly, and since these are heftier chapter books, you get a lot of audio for your money. This clever little book is read in just over an hour, so it’s a nice in-between. My 7 year old is particularly fond of the difference character voices on this card.
This Yoto card is about 3.5 hours, and what a fun story it is to hear! If you love Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, you’ll really enjoy James and the Giant Peach, too. The stories are far fetched and super entertaining. This one starts with James’ parents being eaten by a rhinoceros, if that offers a clue.
This story is short, but it’s just so sweet. It’s about a man who loves zoo animals. I had to have it in our collection! This book won the Caldecott honor in 2011.
My middle boy (age 4) is still developing his listening skills and attention span, so these high action short stories are a hit! There’s over an hour of listening time available here. They are read in a US accent, which isn’t common for Yoto cards.
Matilda is our daughter’s number one favorite chapter book, and she loves the audio. She adores the way Roald Dahl “talks” and he has grown her vocabulary tremendously. This Yoto card is read by Kate Winslet! It’s a four hour audio, so you really get your money’s worth.
Best Yoto Cards for 8-12 Year Olds
If you’re looking for some of the best Yoto cards for 8-12 year olds, I think there’s something here for every kid – whether they love fiction or nonfiction, sweet or sour.
The Boxcar Children Collection
This card launched in December of 2022 and immediately gained huge popularity. If your kids love mysteries, they’ll really be obsessed with the Boxcar children. And doesn’t it make you happy to see them enjoying the same stories we used to love?
Yoto says that in just under a month, kids listened to the Boxcar children for over 1300 hours. The set will give kids over 8 hours of listening time, so it’s not a bad value, either!
The Diary of a Wimpy Kid Collection
Even though the protagonist is a boy, my daughter loves these stories, and the audio is just as excellent. This is probably one of the most popular book series in US elementary schools. All kids love Gregory!
Vile Victorians is just great because it’s educational, gross and funny all at the same time. My daughter is a big fan, which surprised me because she’s normally only into fiction. These cards make history accessible for every kid! The card has right at 1 hour of audio.
Oh, boy, I was just over-the-moon excited when they released this Yoto card. It’s about 2.5 hours of listening time, and it’s just as sweet as the story itself. We haven’t watched the Anne of Green Gables movie at home (the 90s version that I loved growing up), so I’m happy my little girl can experience this children’s literature classic. Soon enough, she’ll be a strong enough reader to enjoy reading these stories the old fashioned way.
All upper elementary school kids love this chapter book series, and the audio recording is excellent, too! You get almost SIX hours of audio with this collection, which is a great bang for your buck. If I had a struggling reader between 3rd and 6th grade, this would be my first card collection to purchase, because it’s so high interest and a great introduction to chapter books.
I loved when we received this card as a gift for my daughter, who is an avid reader. She’s easily turned off by the unfamiliar, like most young readers. But put it on audio and it’s a whole different story to her! Audiobooks are an excellent way to make classic stories more accessible, so I’m excited by this card. It’s 2 hours and 15 minutes of listening time.
Imagine my surprise when my 7 year old told me, “True love is when you love someone so much you’ll kill yourself for them!” I was horrified and had a lot of explaining to do, but also kind of excited that she was listening to Shakespeare. So, proceed with caution. There’s 4 straight hours of Shakespeare stories here, including 10 different plays.
Did you know this story was originally printed in 1880? The wonderful thing about reading is that you can be transported to another time and place without ever leaving your couch – or in this case, your bathtub or snuggly bed! This story is set in the Swiss Alps, so it’s a great way to expose your little ones to a different time and place. There is 2.5 hours of listening time.
