Models are crucial to science teaching and learning, yet they can create unforeseen and overlooked challenges for students and teachers. For example, consider the time-tested clay volcano that relies on a vinegar and-baking-soda mixture for its "eruption." Based on a classroom demonstration of that geologic model, elementary students may interpret the experience to mean that "volcanic eruptions are based on a simple chemical reaction," or "lava is not hot." Students may wonder, "Where do the chemicals come from?" or "How do the vinegar and baking soda mix inside the Earth?" Other classic models may spawn their own array of naive notions--the solar system mobile in which all planets are roughly the same size as one another and as the Sun itself, or the quick anatomical visualization that "the human heart is about the size and shape as your fist," or even the seemingly innocuous, simplified textbook diagram of the water cycle depicting the only water source as a lake or ocean. Each may generate incorrect, and frequently unresolved, misconceptions in students' minds. Adults, tend to reflexively adjust for the shortcomings of instructional models because they make good sense to them, however, that doesn't mean they'll make good sense to students. Science teachers can help students analyze the quality and utility of models we introduce in class, so that they have a better sense of empirical reality and thus are better prepared to face real-life situations. What the author has found useful is a simple, student-led procedure involving analysis and deconstruction of instructional models. While there is some disagreement about the age at which models can be used to teach science, most believe that models are an integrated process skill suitable for children in late elementary to early middle school years.