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Bianca Nita is a children's book illustrator, originally from an idyllic village in Romania and now working from London. Her illustrations are colourful, expansive, dreamlike, full of details that sets the minds gears into action to try to assemble the connections between the multiple moving parts. After creating an app that featured archetypes in the form of superheros designed to incite emotional reactions and so introspection in children in her native country, visiting schools, hospitals and small villages for underprivileged children, she turned her attention to exclusively working with authors who celebrate core values and diversity in children's literature.

Bianca has a dreamlike view of the world, which she paradoxically structures so clearly with her vision of what she wants her influence in the world of children's literature to be - and frankly, how she wants to show up in the world in general.

Don't miss the end when Bianca shares ideas of how to extend the experience of reading books through linguistics and art. They are

You're going to want to rush, not walk, to the nearest bookstore with a list of the books Bianca has illustrated, so you and your

Take Aways:

Giving children and parents an outlet to express their emotions and explore different experiences through archetypical characters is fundamental in creating a strong affective domain in the classroom and out.

As an illustrator, I'd like to explain that I illustrate the text, but I go further. In interpret the text and include details that are inspired by that interpretation.

Bianca: About myself 🙂 

I'm a soul who believes that imagination is our superpower and the world is full of magic.

Moreover, I believe that the actual sparkle lies at the intersection of what we love, what we care about and how we manifest our unique gifts and talents into our world, for the benefit of others.

Here is a post where I introduced myself recently: ⁠Bianca Nita introduction⁠

I'm a children's illustrator on a mission to create playful and imaginative art for meaningful projects. The projects that fill me with enthusiasm are creative and aim to create a positive impact in children's lives.

My art is a fusion of soulful and diverse characters, lively scenes and visual storytelling that sparks wonder, curiosity and conversation. One of my joys is to delight kids with thoughtful little details that keep them engaged and entertained, while seamlessly sending a message. 

With a background in children's books, animations, educational apps and games, I aim to dream up pictures that captivate both children and parents, giving them something valuable to bond about.

I'm always open to feedback and happy to exchange ideas to create pictures that are full of warmth, expression

Related to published books, I illustrated  ⁠Sometimes I Need⁠  - a powerful children's book about feelings and needs, ⁠''Go To Bed Sleepy Head''⁠ - a charming bedtime story with sloths and fun critters, and two lovely decodable books for ⁠Just Right Reader⁠. In addition, I worked with ⁠GoZen!⁠ on many projects dedicated to mental health and wellbeing for children and teens, and created the inclusive characters behind ⁠Yogi Power⁠ , a very appreciated mindfulness game for families.

Apart from my illustration work, I love connecting with people in a meaningful way, coaching, travelling, playing sports, performing arts and creating uplifting content.

Bianca Nita

Illustrator | Children's Illustrator

Playful Visual Storyteller

⁠@biancanitaillustration⁠

⁠Linkedin profile⁠

⁠Upwork profile⁠⁠

Music in Introduction and End: Apple Blossoms Double String Harp

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Russell Stannard is the founder of www.teachertrainingvideos.com and winner of four awards in educational technology. He's ranked as no less than one of top 20 educational technologists by MIMIO. He puts out a weekly newsletter that has more than 25,000 subscribers and 300,000 yearly visitors to his website. And for a reason.

Russell specialises in training in a range of educational online tools and is incredibly generous in  uploading free videos weekly

I think you're going to be fascinated by Russell's understanding of the dual perspectives of technology - the joys that can come from its use if we're responsible and use it to match our teaching pedagogy - and the detrimental effects it can have if valuable collaborative time for our students in the classroom is sublimated by its use. Russell speaks passionately about how technology has helped him to learn languages in more expansive and diverse ways, and how ideally it can be used in the home as another way of learning more about the culture of whatever language we're studying.

Take Aways:

 Above all, a teacher's pedagogy is the most important element in the classroom, not the technology she or he uses.

Teachers often forget, when they're introducing technology into the lesson, what they're taking out. Maybe they're taking out opportunities for pair or group work that would have been much more valuable.

 I am obsessed with finding ways to learn languages and so my focus on technology is to find those programs or apps that help us learn languages most effectively.

The technology we use in the classroom needs to be tied to your goals, your core principles of teaching, of pedagogy, or we can quickly become guilty of using technology to an excess.

The best reason to use technology in the classroom is to plant the seed in the minds of our students that they can use that technology at home to learn by themselves.

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Today we have an absolutely delicious chat with Esther Bontrager, a passionate advocate for homeschooling. Esther has created a structure for her own children and those of her closest friends, that is based on faith and also has very intentionally researched secular practices that she feels will give her children and students the best education first about who they are as individuals, and then what will lead them to b productive adults in society.

You're going to hear Esther broach subjects such as growing up Amish, leaving that community, and continuing her most cherished and valued practices from her childhood in her own home. She relates in so many ways her deep love of learning, and how she has tempered the very strict religious

Get ready to note down a few of the books that Esther has found to be inspirational  in her philosophy of homeschooling as she shares her young students' education. You'll see that even before she began, she had the whole arch of her young charges thought out carefully so that even what looks like free time or play time is really a very deliberate opportunity for them to develop those skills she feels are fundamental for their growth as whole people.

Books that have shaped Esther's homeschooling:

A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the Twenty-First Century

The Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe

Michael S. Schneider

Esther's own podcast: Homeschoolwithexcellence

Home rules in Esther's home:

Our family rules are:

Be obedient

Be reverent

Be respectful 

Be responsible and...

Think Heidi thoughts🤩 (That has to do with enjoying beauty and adventure and risk and creativity.)

Get your FREE MATERIALS ⁠here⁠ to create a powerfully strong learning environment such as the one Esther talks about.

If you like this episode, ⁠treat Donna to a veggie burger! ⁠- or a couple of bites of one!!

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Today's very welcome guest is Shannon Warner, a former classroom teacher (although she herself insists that once a teacher, always a teacher!) with experience in two extremes - one urban and one very rural school. After five intense years, she became a classic case of teacher burnout, taking on too many responsibilities, caring too much about her students and their families, and not taking enough care herself. Her next eight years was working in the graphic apparel industry in sourcing and operations, but that didn't really match her passions and so now, a mom of two young girls herself, Shannon very joyfully is forming a business that is geared toward supporting career-oriented women, like herself transition into motherhood.

 You're going to hear how Shannon learned so foundationally by an incredibly supportive and generous mentor teacher, how the positive perspectives of that mentor affected not only her future relationships with her own students but with their families as well, how her own classroom was largely influenced by Shannon's own belief that if we create a learning environment in which students have the opportunity for freedom, they thrive, and how she very reluctantly had to leave her classroom five years later, as her overachieving tendencies led her to accepting far too many responsibilities that ultimately compromised her health.

I think you're going to be mesmerised by Shannon's ability to verbally project her experiences and how she was able to form such productive and positive learning environments over her years in a rural charter school, creating a learning environment that reflected her underlying philosophy that the physical and emotional safety of the students comes first, and only then can we expect them to learn. You can find more conversations about education of all levels at Doodles with Donna, and activities that match virtually all methodologies at scaffoldingmagic.com. Let's now meet Shannon Warner, teacher extrordinnaire and advocate for celebrating the whole child in the classroom. Welcome Shannon!!!

Shannon is about to launch a Free 5 Day Rock Your

https://view.flodesk.com/pages/64370cc02c48b442fa99ab0b

She can also be found on Instagram at Having a Mom

Take aways:

Once you have classroom management and a strong relationship with the parents, a lot of the rest of the education comes

 Three rules Shannon learned from her mentor teacher

Be safe

Be respectful

Be responsible

Classroom discussions: What does it look like to be

I didn't adhere to any specific methodology. My goal first was my students and making sure they were safe and felt safe and cared for, and then caring about the child first and building that foundation, because if any of that isn't in place, there's no learning that's going to

Shannon gives advice not only for teachers and parents

The person whose thesis is on the socio-emotional consequences on teaching, is from Stephanie Bacon, in another interview in Doodles with Donna.

If you like this episode, ⁠treat Donna to a veggie burger! ⁠- or a couple of bites of one!!

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You can find more conversations like this one at ⁠⁠Doorways to Learning with Donna⁠⁠

Leesa Fields, has an incredible background in International Affairs. Before becoming a mother of two very different and remarkable children, she travelled

Leesa guided her daughter through a bilingual experience for her 12 years before university. You're going to hear how Leesa and her

Raising and schooling a son with Aspergers was not easy 30 years ago and still isn't easy and you'll hear ways Leesa found to be proactive in an absolutely positive way so that teachers and administrators wanted to work with her. She's going to share ways that she used the resources

I think you're going to be amazed by the amount of information you will hear and can use in your own circumstances regarding autism and the choices she made about bilingual and faith-based learning for her daughter.

Takeaways:

I believe every child should get the education she or he needs be it private or public. In our case, for one of our children public school was ideal and for the other private school was in her best interests.

Travel is the only way to experience the world. You can't have a decent world view unless you see it an experience it yourself.

If you like this episode, ⁠treat Donna to a veggie burger! ⁠- or a couple of bites of one!!

⁠⁠Stephanie Bacon has been a teacher for more than 20 years, in a moment of inspiration she took a break from the classroom  to get her doctorate and so is now deep into a dissertation that will turn your mind over and over again regarding the beliefs you probably have  regarding teachers' emotional preparation in facing the challenges of today's students.  

Stephanie shares her underlying belief of what education is for - to empower children and prepare them for the world around them - the erroneous focus we have for students and teachers on a cognitive rather than an emotional foundation, and what her contribution may well be when she finishes her studies and goes back into the classroom - that will surely be revolutionary for everyone around her.

Please contact her at: [email protected] or at her nwebsite: https://www.stephaniebacon.net/

If you like this episode, ⁠treat Donna to a veggie burger! ⁠- or a couple of bites of one!!

And you can find more fantastically informational chats at: https://scaffoldingmagic.com/category/doorways-to-learning-with-donna/

Want some more fun fact about our guests? Little-known information about this topic? All of it ⁠⁠⁠HERE⁠⁠⁠!!

You can find more conversations like this one at ⁠⁠Doorways to Learning with Donna⁠⁠

Kristen Ancker, Assistant Director of a Montessori school and is now a Montessori school consultant, Parent Empowerment

Kristen Ancker Takeaways:

Parent/Teacher Empowerment Specialist

@kristenanckercoaching on instagram

www.kristenancker.comhttps://www.youtube.com/channel/UCN8IUIB9pWpQhU-A4Z23emA

If you like this episode, ⁠treat Donna to a veggie burger! ⁠- or a couple of bites of one!!

Want some more fun fact about our guests? Little-known information about this topic? All of it ⁠⁠⁠HERE⁠⁠⁠!!

You can find more conversations like this one at ⁠⁠Doorways to Learning with Donna⁠⁠

Sherrie Fisher is a retired teacher who spent over 31 years teaching and learning. During her career, she taught elementary and middle school students, as well as teachers in workshops across the country. Sherrie is passionate about creating a learning environment where students felt safe to make mistakes and loved to learn. She encourages her students to see learning in the world around them, not just in the classroom. Now that she's retired, Sherrie lives on 22 acres in southern Maryland with her awesome husband and sweet dog. In her free time, she enjoys gardening, Pilates, swimming, and creating content for her podcast, The Soul Journey Podcast. Her podcast explores the many facets of personal growth and spiritual development providing listeners with insights and inspiration for their own journeys. Sherrie's two beautiful daughters are grown and successfully on their own, but empty nesting is not easy. Nonetheless, Sherrie looks forward to the next chapter of her life and continues to inspire others through her work. To learn more about Sherrie and her podcast, visit her website at www.thesouljourneyco.com or follow The Soul Journey Podcast on Instagram at @thesouljourneypodcast. You can listen to her podcast on your favorite platform!

Get your FREE MATERIALS here to create a powerfully strong learning environment such as the one Sherrie talks about.

If you like this episode, ⁠treat Donna to a veggie burger! ⁠- or a couple of bites of one!!

Want some more fun fact about our guests? Little-known information about this topic? All of it ⁠⁠⁠HERE⁠⁠⁠!!

You can find more conversations like this one at ⁠⁠Doorways to Learning with Donna⁠⁠

Pamela Fields is the Deputy Secretary General of CULCON, which is both a part of and independent of the functioning US government, with the mission of joining U.S. and Japanese interests in cultural and educational issues.

Some fantastic takeaways:

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Trailer to Season one of Doodles with Donna