Many teachers have taught their share of science lessons that needed improvements. For the past eight years, the authors have been working with elementary teachers to implement quick and easy strategies to modify existing science lessons to make them more inquiry-based. Elementary teachers can use these strategies to adapt existing science lessons to address the five essential features of inquiry and scientific practices defined by the National Research Council ([NRC] 2000; 2012). Incorporating these practices of science into an existing lesson "helps students understand how scientific knowledge develops" through active engagement in the processes of science. To illustrate these adaptation strategies, the authors use a freely available elementary science lesson on magnetism, which one teacher taught in her third-grade classroom. In this lesson, students investigate the strength of a magnet by adding layers of tape and observing how the pieces of tape affect the ability of the magnet to attract paper clips. They purposefully chose this standards-based, reform-oriented science lesson to highlight that these adaptation strategies are helpful to modify even well-designed science lessons. (Contains 1 table, 3 figures and 1 online resource.)