Yoto Favorites: Our Go-To Premade Resources

I’ve shared before how much our family loves our Yoto Player - we use it for homeschool, playtime, and just about everything in between!

We’ve had ours for about a year now, and I quickly discovered that the “Make Your Own” (MYO) playlists was generally the best option for our family. It was reasonably easy, although tedious, to turn MP3 tracks of our school books into Yoto playlists, rip our old CDs and add them to the Yoto, and even link the kids’ favorite Catholic podcasts.

That being said, we’ve also purchased quite a few official Yoto cards, and for good reason. While creating playlists isn’t hard, it does take a bit of time and mental energy that I don’t always have. Sometimes, paying a little extra for a ready-to-use card is absolutely worth it. It can be overwhelming at first to navigate ALL the options that become available when you start diving into MYOs - buying some Yoto staples is a great way to get of the ground and start enjoying your Yoto player right away.

In this post, I’ll share the Yoto cards we’ve loved most along with other premade options that don’t require any MYO tinkering. At the end, I’ll share a few criteria I find helpful for determining when NOT to buy from Yoto.

🤔 Wait… What Is a Yoto Player?

If you’re not familiar, the Yoto Player is a kid-friendly audio speaker which can be used to play any audio content that your family adds to your Yoto Library. While there is a companion app for parents to manage the Library, kids can safely control the Yoto player on their own without needing access to the app by using either premade or MYO (make your own) NFC chip cards to trigger the downloaded content to play. For our family, it’s been a game-changer for homeschool, car rides, and especially bedtime. 🌙✨

🎛️ Yoto Store Favorites by Age Range

In our house, everyone listens to everything. However, every family is different, so here is a more natural break down by age group, and who these cards typically appeal to:

🐣 Littles (ages 3–5)

• Laurie Berkner Collection 🎵 - Fun, playful songs little ones never get tired of.

• Five-Minute Sleepy Stories 🌙 - Short, calming tales that are perfect for winding down.

• Hotel Flamingo 🦩 - Silly, lighthearted adventures for young listeners.

• Elizabeth Mitchell Songs 🎶 - Gentle, folksy music that makes for cozy background listening.

• My First 100 Words 🧒- A super engaging card for littles that has a pixel image to go along with basic words in multiple languages.

📚 Early Readers (ages 5–8)

• Frog and Toad (Complete Collection) 🐸- Sweet, timeless stories read by the author.

• Winnie-the-Pooh Collection 🍯- Unabridged stories of Pooh Bear and friends produced by the BBC.

• Magic Tree House Collection ✨ - Combines history and fantasy in bite-sized adventures.

• Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle 💼 - Funny and imaginative stories kids this age really relate to.

• Geronimo Stilton Trilogy 🐭 - Fast-paced and humorous; this set of early chapter books full of cheese puns engages the youngest to the oldest.

• Enid Blyton’s Five-Minute Stories 🚂 - Another great short-story collection, packed with charm and adventure.

• Charlotte’s Web 🕸️ - A heartfelt classic, this is a full cast recording.

🦁 Bigger Kids (ages 6+)

• The Chronicles of Narnia (Complete Series) 🦁 - Epic, adventurous, and full of depth. Its generally really hard to find the entire audiobook set for less than Yoto offers it for!

• Stuart Little 🛶 - A strange tale of a shy yet spunky mouse, this is a frequent pick by my older kids.

• The Phantom Tollbooth  🛎️ - Clever, wordy, and thought-provoking.

• The Moffats 🏠 - Old-fashioned fun with lots of heart. This was on our book list for school so I was extra excited that it was offered as a card already.

• The Cricket in Times Square 🎻 - Unabridged and dramatized, its a great classic to have in the library.

• BrainBots 🤖- Educational and entertaining, this is a series of short explainer episodes perfect for curious kids.

🎧 Unaffiliated Premade Playlist Options

🧸Momma Bear Audio - A fantastic recent discovery! For just a dollar or two per playlist (or a reasonably priced yearly subscription), you can add Ms. Riley’s original content directly to your Yoto library. Her playlists come fully formatted with pre-labeled tracks and pixel art (a bonus as you’d have to make them yourself if you did MYO). We opted for the yearly subscription when it was on sale, and it’s been worth every penny. Our family favorites so far include Clean Up Games, Math Escape Room, and Dino Constructors.

🎙️Podcasts - Not technically a “premade playlist,” but linking a podcast immediately adds it to your library in playlist format under the ‘podcast’ tab. These can also be linked to a Yoto card. They even auto-download new episodes - an endless source of free audio! Some of our new favorites are On The Night Train (A full cast adventure story from the Merry Beggars) and The Saints (full cast Saint audio dramas).

🐉Yoto Space - While this is affiliated with Yoto, but it’s more of a creator space where independent creators and public domain audiobooks are shared. With just a tap, you can add them to your library; they usually have track lists, cover art, and pixel icons already added. Our favorite finds here include The Complete Beatrix Potter Series, The Book of Dragons, and The Green Ember.

While there are other great audio options, including Catholic ones, from independent creators that are easily adapted to the Yoto through MYO, these are the only options I’ve found so far where you can add a new pre-formulated playlist to your Yoto Library with a touch of a button. Stay tuned for our favorite Catholic and Homeschool MYO content resources in another post!

💡 When to Choose Premade vs. MYO

We love both premade Yoto cards and Make Your Own cards, but we use them in different ways. Here’s how we usually decide:

⭐ Go with Premade Cards when:

• You need something quick and ready-to-go (no setup required).

• It’s a big collection or long audiobook — often Yoto’s price is the best deal.

• You want the extras like pixel art, track labeling, or cover designs without having to make them yourself.

• You just don’t have the mental bandwidth to tinker (hello, busy homeschool days 🙋‍♀️).

🎶 Choose MYO Cards when:

• You want to upload unavailable or niche content that Yoto doesn’t sell.

• You’re looking for the most budget-friendly option; its frequently less expensive to buy mp3s of audiobooks from other sources and then upload as a MYO.

• Your family loves customizing (combining books or tracks, adding unique pixel art, or making special playlists for each kid).

• You already have a digital collection (like ripped CDs or MP3s) you’d like to reuse, rather than buying again.

• You want to record your own audio - we utilize this for short picture books that my children want on a Yoto card. The audio for this is usually just as expensive as a chapter book card, for only a few minutes of audio, so it makes sense to just make our own.

For us, it’s a bit of a balancing act. Premade cards save time and add polish, while MYO cards stretch our budget and let us personalize. Having both has made our Yoto experience way more flexible and fun.

💸Tip: If you prefer to buy Premade Cards, Yoto’s club subscription is the most cost effective way to build your library. You can choose between 3 club tiers depending on what your budget is and how many card credits you want per month. Every tier includes access to the expansive digital catalog of cards, which is a great way to see which stories are going to really click with your kids, in addition to the card credits.

I actually used the Club to purchase most of the titles we own now, and it made building our library so much more affordable. We don’t currently pay for the subscription anymore, but we still enjoy all the physical cards we bought with credits, and may consider joining again in the future if we find we want to add some new titles. It’s totally worth it for variety and value.

⏭️What We Skip (and Why)

• Cards that have content that is contrary to our Catholic Faith or ones that contain themes we don’t think are appropriate for our children. The Snap Happy Mom has a really helpful content guide!

• Cards that are too basic (e.g., single-song or one-off stories) that don’t hold the kids’ attention for long. We're all about variety and replay value.

• Cards with limited playtime and limited value, those don’t give us enough bang for our buck.

• Most Character/Disney Pixar cards. While there are a few that the kids got for their birthday, we’ve found that we don’t need a lot of excess titles and, while we love a good movie, these cards have a tendency to crowd out titles that hold more literary value.

Whether you go the MYO route, stick with official cards, or explore creative third-party options, there’s no shortage of amazing audio content for the Yoto Player. These premade favorites have saved us time, and really come to the rescue during many a homeschool mornings and bedtime routine.

✨ I’d love to hear from you: What are your family’s favorite Yoto cards? Do you have any genius Yoto hacks or MYO tricks that make your player even more fun? Drop your favorites in the comments, I’m always looking for new recommendations!