This year, my children were gifted the Yoto audio player:
And, they love it! We have a tv in our home, and a few old tablets with some games installed. But, we’ve never had an Alexa, and our oldest figured out how to listen to books through Spotify. Since this came along, we were excited to see how they would be able to listen to stories during the day and to go to bed at night.
It’s simple to set up. There’s a parental app to use for noise, time, settings, cards, controls, and much more. It’s nice to have that information on a parent device.
The left knob controls volume, and there’s a discreet button for off/on. The right knob, when pushed, gave us a cool surprise: a daily podcast! They loved hearing the information for the day. It comes with a charger, but it can last without. We took it out of town, and I do recommend bringing the charger on trips.
Once it was set up, we tested out our cards. We were gifted classic stories and Roald Dahl’s favorites. My daughters enjoys falling asleep to the Secret Garden and Alice in Wonderland. They all three loved listening to Roald Dahl’s stories being read.
It’s important to note that the narrators are GOOD! It crossed my mind, but we’ve found that the narrators have great, clear inflection and tone.
Yoto has a big collection of stories! Each card is sturdy and designed well. My kiddos already have their eyes on new ones. There are also cards for kids to ‘make and record their own stories’ which is really cool.
For our age range of children (10, 7, 5), this device worked well because they can find their own favorite books and authors. It seems really well built, and it’s been good for quiet play, bedtime, and travel. We are impressed by this device and love the screen free option for our little bookworms.