The Yoto Player and Our Montessori Home

I'm going to admit this right off the top, I'm not a huge music/audiobook person. I think I'm mostly overwhelmed too easily by the noise of daily life that I'm not the first one reaching to add more noise. But, my children, on the other hand, are HUGE audiobook and music people. There is always someone in this house listening to a book, blasting music, or wishing they had the device that one of their siblings is using so they can do one of those things. 🫣😆

After far too many fights over who was going to use our smart speakers (and listening to a toddler scream at it in vain) I decided to get a Yoto player for our home. This was nearly a year and a half ago and it is still one of the most popular things in our house. Everyone from my toddler to my teen uses the Yoto. I'm so glad I purchased it and foresee it being popular for years to come.

I get asked very frequently what cards we love and what are the best Montessori friendly choices for Yoto cards available. I want to preface this by saying I'm not a Yoto expert. There are people who spend way more time and money buying, listening, selling, and trading Yoto cards. So, I'm sharing this purely from my novice perspective. I'll share some favorite cards and some that are on my wish list. This absolutely isn't an extensive list, but I'll share a few choice by age.

For this age group, I like to introduce a variety of music and Yoto makes that super simple. I try to avoid fantasy and keep books short and sweet. I like that they have some cards that match up with much loved toddler classics. Here are some choices for this age group: 

This is another group where I like shorter stories. So I look for cards that are collections of stories where each "chapter" is essentially a stand alone story. I try to be minimal on fantasy and have things set in real life. Yoto does have more fantasy based stories than I would choose for physical books, so it's definitely something where I'm making a case-by-case decision based on the card. Typically the fantasy based are where animals replace the people but they are still very much doing realistic, slow things. Here are some choices I like for this group: 

This is the age where I naturally start to introduce more fantasy, especially pop culture favorites. I would rather they read a book than watch a screen so I appreciate some of these options. This is also the age where I like to introduce some longer individual stories, chapter books, and a wider variety of themes. The cards you should be picking really should match your individual children's interests so that they stay engaged. Here are some choices I like for this age: 

By this age, your kids should really be driving the choices but there are a surprising number of great ones even for this age. I love that they have a lot of non-fiction and long fiction choices. My older kids listen just as much as my younger ones because they really have a great collection of options for all ages. Here are some of the choices we enjoy for older kids: 

 And as always, please remember that we didn't build our collection of books overnight. I do not own every single one of these and it will take time to build your own collection. Often I buy cards used and sometimes sell cards once we are done. The Yoto club is also a great way to build your collection overtime.