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My youngest son LOVES music and specifically toddler music. He has Down Syndrome and there is something about music that just soothes his nervous system and moves his soul! We have toddler music CDs, we play toddler music through our Alexa speaker, and he can play his own music on his Yoto Mini player. All he has to do is put a card of his choice in the player and use the big buttons to navigate to the song he wants. We started with the bigger Yoto player because we thought it would be more difficult to lose. But my son always wanted to carry it around so we got the Yoto Mini because it is smaller and the cards fit in tighter and don't fall out as easy.

Why Yoto Players Are Perfect for Young Music Lovers

The Yoto Player and Yoto Mini are designed specifically with young children in mind. I have searched the internet for MP3 players for kids without screens and there aren't any great options. If you can even find one, the controls are not easy for young children to use. With the Yoto, children interact with physical cards rather than swiping through apps, which makes the experience tactile and engaging while keeping their eyes and minds focused on the music itself. You can purchase music cards, storybook cards, or educational cards. Or you can easily make your own cards! The Yoto Mini is the best MP3 player for kids, hands down.

Current Yoto Cards Available

Yoto has a plethora of music cards available. They even have several toddler music cards but they aren't all the versions my son prefers. He loves Super Simple Songs because he watches those videos on his tablet. But the Super Simple Songs cards Yoto offers are all themed collections and none of them have our favorite classics all together. 

My son also loves Cedarmont Kids DVDs and CDs from the early 90s that we have collected from consignment sales. Shockingly (or not) these hits are not available from Yoto.

See some of our favorite music cards that Yoto currently sells. Kidz Bop is my older kids' attempt at moving my son on from toddler music! Ha. 

(The cards with links will take you to Amazon, the others can be found on Yoto's website.)

Kidz Bop

Popstar Hits
90s Pop
Ultimate Kids Bop Playlist
Super Pop!
All Time Greatest Hits
Kidz Bop 50
Kidz Bop 51
Party Playlist
Best Songs Ever Volume 1
Halloween
Christmas
Christmas Volume 2

Super Simple Songs

Collection: Happy Songs, Silly Songs, Bedtime Songs, Underwater Songs
Farm Songs
Christmas Songs
Spooky Songs

Laurie Berkner

Collection: Transportation Songs, Animal Songs, Food Songs
Lullabies
Movement Songs
Nature Songs
Songs About Love

Cocomelon

Collection
Classic Hits
Dance Party
Lullabies

How to Make Your Own Yoto Card

Yoto makes is easy and fun to make your own (MYO) Yoto Cards. Start by purchasing blank Yoto cards. Then purchase the MP3 music files you want to include on your card. You can find music through Amazon Music or iTunes, where you can buy individual songs or complete albums. More about where and how to get music later. Once you've purchased your music, download the files to your mobile device so they're ready to upload to the Yoto app.

Next, open the Yoto app on your device and navigate to the playlist creation section. Create a new playlist and add the songs you've downloaded in the order you'd like them to play. You can arrange, remove, or add songs as needed to build the perfect collection for your card. Each card can hold 100 tracks and/or 500 MB/5 hours.

Give your playlist a fun name and description. You can also add a pixel icon for each song that will display on the player. This helps kids recognize which song they want to play. You can choose from the icons on the Yoto App or go to yotoicons.com to search their database of free pixel icons. This part is pretty fun!

Once your playlist is complete, you'll need a blank Yoto card to link it to. When prompted, simply hold your blank card up to your phone to sink. You can also put the card in your Yoto player to sink if you are using your computer instead of your cell phone.

You will want to label your card in some way. I usually just use a sharpie. But since the cards are reusable you may want a label that can be removed. So you could put a piece of  washi tape at the top of the card (so it shows when in the player) and write on top of that with sharpie. You can also use stickers that come with the blank cards or use your own stickers. Or you can make your own labels using my free Canva template. More on that later.

As our collection of cards have grown we wanted a place to store them that my son could easily open and close himself. We found a magnetic card box like this one that comes in many different colors.

How & Where to Buy Music

Nowadays most of use stream music but you can still purchase music downloads as MP3s. For most people the easiest options are to purchase through Apple or Amazon.

I prefer to use the Apple iTunes because it is a much easier shopping experience. Simply open iTunes on your computer or the Music app on your iPhone or iPad, search for the music you want, and select the purchase option. You can buy individual tracks or full albums, and your purchases are stored in your iTunes library and synced across all your Apple devices. In my experience, Apple has more individual songs for sale then Amazon.

Purchasing MP3 music through Amazon is a bit trickier and more time consuming. You cannot buy music through the Amazon Music App nor the Amazon App. You have to go to the Amazon website in a web browser.

I included some images below to help you navigate buying music on Amazon. Click the search dropdown list and click "Digital Music."

Search for the album or song you want, and look for the MP3 purchase option. You can see here that although we selected "Digital Music," Amazon mixes digital music and other items in the search results. Just look for an item with the "Amazon music" logo and click on "or $price to buy MP3."

Now click "Purchase Options." 

Then you will see if you have to buy the whole album or just the one song that you want. Click the option to buy and complete your purchase. Once purchased, the files are added to your Amazon Music library where you can download them to your device for offline listening. 

How to Make Labels for MYO Yoto Cards

I've made it super easy for you with my free MYO Yoto Card Label Canva template.

Canva is free and easy to use. Just click the link to open to the template. I included 2 sizes of templates: one with the exact size of the Yoto cards and one with 1/8 inch margin. I prefer to use the one with the margin as it gives a little grace when trying to line it up on the card.

One template style just shows a gray outline for you to fill with text and images. The other template style has frames. You can drag and drop images into the frames to easily crop them. You can use Canva's vast image library or find your own images on the internet and upload them to Canva.

I even included a few pre-designed labels that only need a title. You can type the title using the Canva template or just download them as pdf, print, and write your title. Print the labels of your choice and design on sticker paper and cut them out. Then attach to your new card and start listening!

I hope these tips and resources have been helpful to you. Have fun making your own music cards for your little music lovers!