I was recently asked how I got my 2 year old into her Yoto and while I hadn’t thought about it too much once I considered it, there was a method to the madness.

We love Yoto and honestly think that it is brilliant and there will soon be one in every house because it is so easy, so intuitive and just so…logical. 

Start with a Make Your Own (MYO) Card
Your intro card that comes with every Yoto player is a MYO card. You also can purchase more of these cards for about $3. They are affordable and rewritable so when one becomes boring, you can reuse it for updated material but also cheap enough that you can keep a Christmas Music card even if it won’t be played for the next 11 months. Brilliant. We began our Yoto journey with a MYO card that that is an assortment of STUFF. Music for sure, but not even real songs. It is songs that I recorded of myself singing Itsy Bitsy Spider in the bathroom, Grandma singing Twinkle Twinkle, older cousins singing jingles, telling knock-knock jokes, or made of jibber-jabber. On it are recordings of the kids just cracking themselves up and essentially voicemails from beloved people. The recording of my dad saying “Happy Birthday! You are two! Pops and Abi love you very much,” was repeated so often that for months when anyone asked Mimi how
old she was, her response was ” I two. Pops and Abi love Mimi”. I add
new tracks to the card every so often and this card has grown to have over 30
tracks on it but it is still only 20 minutes long. It is a favorite. I suggest
you don’t overthink it and just put tiny clips on here for little dudes and
feature them and people they love. The dog barking twice in a row? Add it. Grandma just saying, “I love you”? Add it. Fifteen seconds of one of the kids
belly laughing?  You get the idea.

Familiarity = Fondness
About a year ago, Josh’s mom and Aunt Jan took Mimi for the day and during
their adventure, Mimi became obsessed with Big Red Barn at the bookstore. So Grandma did what grandmas do and bought it for her. Hilariously, Mimi’s favorite book at home was, Big Red Barn. Don’t assume that toddlers think like we do and want what’s new and cool. They are just as often drawn to the familiar. So oddly, start with what they already know as opposed to new totally new information in a totally new system.

Songs then Stories
Our next step in Yoto indoctrination (kidding…kind of) was the move towards a
familiar songs card. We don’t drive very often, but when we do, we usually
drive for over an hour. Josh starts to get a little crazy if we attempt to listen
to the “Wheels on the Bus only” playlist on Spotify (which is ironic because I swear it is the only thing that kept me sane for about 2 months), so much of that family car time is spent listening to Charlie Hope. Charlie Hope forever! Unfortunately, Yoto doesn’t sell a Charlie Hope card but with Amazon credits I purchased tracks and put them on a card (you can do your kids like listening to that doesn’t make you want to pull out your own hair). Yoto sells some really great ones like Laurie Berkner and just like the Beatles. I think that the fact these songs were familiar from listening to them with me/us helped her to connect with the card and grew her desire for it as opposed to trying to get her to engage with something new and using a new platform.

Next, we introduced Mimi to familiar books. These are SHORT, only about 5
minutes long and I put them on separate cards (even though one card can hold hours and hours of audio). While she CAN skip tracks, I don’t think she really GETS it yet.  So cards with limited material just increases the chance that she will be successful in playing the audio that she wants.

We read the physical book, we did a read-along. We watched the cartoon based on the book on Amazon (credits again) We’re Going on a Bear Hunt. I found an audio and made a playlist with it on yoto.  Then, played the yoto playlist in the
car a few times. Finally, I made a card. That was honestly the first card that
got her hooked on stories. All of a sudden she seemed to connect that the Yoto
was “reading”. Shortly after that she began to self select and listen to other favorite books that I/ other family members had recorded.  These are still very short books. Like I said, less than 5 minute recording (but she listening to them on a loop) and now she will pay attention to other slightly longer stories read by strangers (professionally recorded). The Corduroy Collection is current favorite and available readymade on Yoto. However, Mimi really likes the first story of the collection. Is it because this is the only one that we have a physical book for and we read it maaany times before we introduced that card? Maybe. Or Maybe she just thinks that is the best story.

New Stuff
Now that she is familiar with the device, I have good success with MYO seasonal
audio. Yoto sells the lots of great seasonal cards but I have found that MYO
are awesome.  I can slip a story into the middle of some familiar and new music and it does wonders to extend her interest. I also tend to like to play the seasonal stuff on repeat more (or maybe I just tolerate it best because I know it has a limited shelf life).

Read-alongs
Our house isn’t there yet. Mimi seems to have just connected that the words
MEAN something on the paper and I am interested to see if this will transition
to her enjoying “reading along”. I have such clear (and joyful) memories of doing this that I am anxious for my children to enjoy it to! So, if and when that happens I will need to assess and create a system for how to display the cards and books in an organized way. Isn’t that always the way? These constantly changing kids keeping us on our toes, but you know what, with MYO cards and the Yoto we can just keep adapting!

I get audio and then make playlists with icons from yotoicon.com  From your library you can then link it to a MYO card. It is super easy.  I print out labels on sticker paper and add them to the cards. They don’t last forever (because Blaise eats them) but I just print out a couple at a time and replace them when they NEED it.