Who made the water blaster in the backyard, and how do we know? This ready-to-teach packet turns a one-minute song into three lessons on reading, history and engineering.
In Somebody Before Me: Lonnie Johnson & the Super Soaker, a curious child meets Lonnie Johnson, a Black engineer and inventor from Mobile, Alabama, who worked on NASA space missions. In 1982, while testing a new kind of heat pump, a stream of water shot across his bathroom and he had an idea for a toy. Students then look at his real 1986 squirt gun patent to find out how we know.
What's inside (24-page printable PDF):
3 sessions of 30–40 minutes each: Who Made This?, How Do We Know? and What Will YOU Make?
A Patent Detective page built on Johnson's original patent drawing. Students find the maker, date and place, like real historians.
Two reading levels (K–1 and grades 2–3) with comprehension questions
Squirt Test: a hands-on experiment with squeeze bottles. Does more pressure shoot farther?
Sing-along lyric sheet, word cards, a problem-and-solution page, a timeline to cut and sort, and a then-and-now page
My Invention Plan and a Classroom Patent certificate
Standards: Common Core RI.2.1, RI.2.3, RI.2.7, W.2.2 and SL.2.1; NGSS K-2-ETS1-1, K-2-ETS1-2 and K-2-ETS1-3; C3 Framework D2.His.2.K-2 and D2.His.11.K-2
Teacher background, teaching-with-care notes, differentiation, a family page, an answer key and full source links
Works with the free video on Teach Between the Lines TV (about 1 minute, captions on screen).
Super Soaker is a registered trademark of its owner. This is an educational resource and is not affiliated with or endorsed by the brand.
License: one teacher, for use with their own students. Please do not share, post publicly or resell.