Maria Banou is a kindergarten educator and a doctor of education at the Department of Early Childhood Education, University of Ioannina, Greece. Her doctoral thesis is related to “Playing as a teaching tool in preschool and school education”. She has studied at the University of Ioannina, where she acquired her Postgraduate Certificate on Preschool Education (PGCE) with a First, with a major in Designing, Implementation and Evaluation of Preschool and Primary School Curricula. Her research interests are focused on issues of pedagogics as well as preschool and primary school education, mainly on the cognitive domains of designing and evaluating curricula as well as on play didactics. She has participated in numerous colloquies, meetings, seminaries, and experiential learning laboratories related to preschool education and training, teaching practices, special education, co-inclusive education, and differentiated teaching, and she has also participated with presentations at conferences and symposiums with international participation. Finally, she is a co-author of books, articles in journals, collective volumes, and conference proceedings.