Magical Molly can’t make the coronavirus pandemic disappear, but she can help parents teach their young children some basic skills.
Magical Molly is the virtual alter-ego of Gina Whitener, who started a series of how-to videos for her students in the
De Soto School District about six years ago.
Whitener, 55, of Herculaneum is an occupational therapist at Athena Elementary School and helps students with special needs, including many on the autism spectrum.
“Traditionally, an occupational therapist helps you do whatever you need to do to do your job,” she said. “In a school setting, the children’s job is learning, so we teach them communications skills, handwriting, sensory activities, coping skills so they don’t have a meltdown in their classroom.”
Whitener said Magical Molly videos are an outreach of her work.
“Some of my parents were asking me to help them follow through at home the same things I was teaching their children at school, so I started posting videos on a YouTube channel,” she said. “While they were developed with special-needs children in mind, I’d say parents of pre-kindergartners through first-graders will find them useful.”
The early videos involved teaching children how to write each letter of the alphabet. Since Whitener linked the YouTube channel with her own website, kidzskillz.com, Magical Molly has branched out.
“I’m probably best known for my shoe-tying video,” she said. “That’s had 2.7 million views.”
Some of the subject matter isn’t for those with a weak stomach, like the one on nose-picking.
“No, it’s not a how-to video,” Whitener said. “It teaches children that they have germs on their fingers and that when you put your fingers in your nose, then eat your boogers, you’re really eating germs.”
While Whitener said she takes requests, she doesn’t fill them all.
“I’ve been asked to make a video on wiping butts,” she said. “I didn’t really want to do that, but there are other very good videos you can search for online on the subject.”
She said some of the handwriting videos aren’t necessarily what’s being taught in mainstream classrooms.
“When I’m teaching kids to write, especially with children with autism, it’s a matter of you want them to keep their pencil on the paper as much as possible, because the more a kid picks up the pencil, the more they can get off track. But they find this method useful once they move on to learning cursive. I took bits and pieces of other programs and put them all together.
“The whole reason I developed this is that handwriting programs are expensive, and I wanted to put something good out there for free. And I think this is good.”
Whitener has plenty of experience in teaching young children.
“I’ve been doing this for 31 years now,” she said.
Before starting in 2008 in the De Soto District, Whitener worked for eight years with the former Jefferson County Special Services Co-op, and she has worked for the Special School District of St. Louis County and the Judevine Center.
“I started volunteering with the Judevine Center when I was 16, and I’ve worked with geriatric patients as well at St. Louis University Hospital.”
Whitener said she created the Magical Molly persona when she was working with the co-op.
“I was at Festus one day, and I was asked to come into one of the kindergarten classrooms wearing a hat and cape to give a lesson on writing letters. I started as Magical Gina, but Magical Molly sounded better.”
Her recent videos, Whitener said, have strayed from the Molly character. And there will be more videos to come, she said.
Whitener said her videos have become a family affair.
“In the early days, my son, Dylan, was the one taking the videos, and my husband, Jeff, edits them. I’ve been trying to get my daughter, Emily, who’s a talented singer, to come up with music that would help make children learn.
“My daughter-in-law, Jessica, has been instrumental in this from the beginning. It started out as an idea to make a book on handwriting, and, when she was a graphic arts student in college, she said, ‘I can make that look really professional.’ I was really pleased with that, and eventually, she designed a website for me that we’re both really proud of.”
In addition to dozens of short videos for children, the website, Whitener pointed out, includes resources for parents and teachers.
“There’s a section on there that has links to sites that includes good information for parents on how to talk with their children about COVID-19,” she said.
Whitener said with stay-at-home orders and school closures turning many parents into homeschool teachers, many of them have found KidzSkills and Magical Molly. “This past month, I’ve had 2,000 new subscribers to the YouTube channel,” she said.
Homeschooling parents, Whitener said, should definitely consider turning to the internet to enlist help.
“Even in my classroom, the kids now say, ‘I want to watch the video.’ I tell them that I’m the same person in the video, but they say they want to watch the video rather than have me tell them in person. That’s the way kids now learn.”