Preschoolers are fascinated with dinosaurs, and they often have a wealth of knowledge about numerous dinosaur species. The authors capitalized on this interest by creating a three-dimensional 5E lesson (Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, Evaluate; Bybee 2014) to introduce them to the science practice of modeling. Models are important as tools of reasoning that can be used to understand and explain parts of the world (Schwarz, Passmore, and Reiser 2017). In the Explore section of the lesson, students worked to "excavate" and put together physical model skeletons of dinosaurs. They used pictures and other resources to determine what parts of the skeleton were missing. For the Elaborate portion, they created their own model drawings of their ideas of what the dinosaur looked like when alive. The authors helped students write scientific claims and explain their reasoning for things like whether their dinosaur was bipedal or quadrupedal, what it ate, and special defensive features. This lesson also introduced students to the core idea and crosscutting concept of structure and function through learning how the shape of an object can give clues to how it was used. Students explored core ideas about common ancestry and diversity while learning about the discipline of paleontology. This relates to the lesson as students are comparing dinosaurs with living organisms and learning about how fossils help to infer the past.