Spigot Science

What do two educators in the same writing group talk about? Think about? Write about?  Teaching, of course.  And that’s how Spigot Science Magazine for Kids and Classrooms came into being.

Drawing on our teaching experience, we decided there was a need for a specially focused classroom magazine that showed how science can be integrated in all school subjects.  It would be on one concept only, and could be used in all subject areas across the curriculum, like a mini-textbook. We designed our all-important TOC (Table of Contents) to be the backbone of our targeted articles, and also to ensure that we write for all the classes across the elementary and middle school curriculum.  Since science is all around us, we reasoned that science could and should be talked about in geography, math, language arts, social studies, health, and the arts. Our TOC is called Connections Across the Curriculum. 

Our Library Connection reviews illustrated books on each theme. These reviews describe the selections along with offering teaching ideas—a must for the language-rich classroom.

We checked out the Science Content Standards and, because of that, Think Like a Scientist, Scientists Are People Too, and the Health Connection became regular features.

Our very first issue WATER, January 2008, started it off and an adventure was born. Since then we have created thirteen Spigots covering TREES, THE UNIVERSE, SIMPLE MACHINES, PATTERNS, ENERGY, ECOSYSTEMS, CHANGING EARTH, TELESCOPES, DESIGN, BUGS, ROCKS and MINERALS, SOUND and PLANTS (click below on magazine covers to check out these awesome back issues).

We started our fourth year of publication with our SOUND issue in January of 2011.  We are now introducing a monthly newsletter, Science in the News, and other activities to extend learning.

Our mission, “to help children understand how and why the world works…” translates into promoting reading, research, critical thinking and writing skills, along with science process and inquiry skills.  In other words, we are dedicated to the idea of science literacy for each child—thinking, analyzing, discussing, applying, and writing science—understanding that science is all around us, and appreciating that science truly does make the world go ‘round.