Back to School with Yoto
AD | gifted – We’re in week two of school and we are starting to find our new routine, or maybe just get back to the old one, I’m not sure! What I am though is incredibly lucky that although my two were not impressed at getting up at 7:30am again, they do enjoy school and spending time with their friends. They also have a really positive approach to learning and I am always looking for way to increase their engagement with their education at home.
That doesn’t mean hours of worksheets at the kitchen table though, as I’m not a huge fan of traditional homework tasks. Believing instead that we should look for ways to organically engage with their interests in a way that develops their mental and physical skills too.
Our Yoto has been a really easy way of building a wide variety of things into our day in a relaxed and fun way. These are a few of the cards and resources which we have enjoyed recently.
Yoto Daily Podcast
I’m starting this with free content rather than a card as I can honestly say that our kids LOVE Yoto Daily with Jake. If you’ve not come across it yet, then you’re missing a trick as Yoto Daily is a podcast covering a wide range of topics in many different ways. Word games, maths skills, general knowledge and quizzes are all shared daily in a fun and engaging way. We tend to listen as we eat dinner together at the table and love playing along as a family.
If you’ve not taken the time to listen yet, then I would really encourage you to get on board as not only will you all learn something (I know I do) and have fun, but it also introduces children to the world of podcasts and consuming short form content in this way.
Completely free to access, just tap the right-hand button on your player once to tune in when connected to WiFi.
BBC Earth Collection
The Bear is OBSESSED by nature and absolutely LOVES all of the BBC documentaries. This is an interest we are more than happy to indulge so we were both so excited to spot that Yoto added the BBC Earth collection to their card library.
The collection includes Blue Planet II, The Green Planet and Frozen Planet II.
- Recommended age: 7 – 9 years
- Running time: 3h 40m
The Boy Who Grew Dragons Collection
This may seem like a strange selection for a back to school post but The Boy Who Grew Dragons is part of my son’s year 4 syllabus this year. They started before summer as “the class that grew dragons” and this topic has captured his imagination in a really great way. Something we are keen to build on so we’ve had a great time exploring this fantasy world.
- Recommended age: 6 – 11 years
- Running time: 18h 19m
Ladybird Audio Adventures Volume 4
There’s no way I could create a back to school post without mentioning the Ladybird Audio Adventures series. We already have a few of the older volumes and volume 4 doesn’t disappoint and has already started another round of “did you know” in our house as the kids learn more facts. Volume 4 includes: Sporting Heroes, Natural Wonders of the World, Birds of Prey, The Deserts and Playwrights and Authors.
- Recommended age: 5 – 7 years
- Running time: 5h
Make Your Own Cards
This is one of my favourite things about Yoto – and there are a lot – but the ability to create your own content sits at the top of the list for me. I know that this isn’t unique to Yoto, but I love how easy it is to do, the fact you can link playlists to multiple cards and that you can customize stickers to add to the front of cards to personalise them completely.
We have linked music, audio books, mp3 files of people speaking, funny sounds and jokes.
The pack contains 10 Make your Own Cards which can be used time and time again and 10 sticker sheets, though we choose to make our own.
The Harry Potter Collection
Is this one back to school? Maybe, maybe not. It’s definitely back to school theme and it’s also an utter delight so I’m including it!
Available as individual cards, in a half set split of books 1 – 3 + 4 – 7 or as a complete set of all 7 cards. They’re pricey but with so many hours of content it’s been brilliant heading back to school to Hogwarts.
- Recommended ages: 7 – 14 years (and beyond)
- Running time: 124 h 40 min
So, that’s the Yoto picks that have been keeping us entertained this summer in between our adventures. Is there anything we have missed that you think we should be listening to?
DISCLOSURE: we were sent these items for the purposes of this post. However – as always – all thoughts and opinions are my own.
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