What is an Atom? Simple Explanation for Kids

by Richa Rastogi · Published September 17, 2022 · Updated May 20, 2024

Representation of an Atom

Atoms are the most amazing thing in the universe and kids love to study about them. Although in schools, a concept of the atom is introduced in standard 5th, it has been found that few kids even those of 6th grade and above fail to understand them. So, let’s try to find out what is an atom.

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What is an Atom?

Simple Explanation of Atoms for Kids –

Atoms are very small round particles that make everything around us.. By everything, we mean all things, including yourself. I know it is difficult to understand at first, but yes, even we are made up of atoms.

Now the next question arises, if everything around us is made up of atoms, then why can’t we see them? The reason for it is that atoms are very small, even the biggest atom is so small that we cannot see it directly by our naked eyes.

In order to get a feel for the actual size of atoms, let’s do a simple exercise –

Exercise:

Get a single grain of rice from your kitchen and hold it on your palm. Now just imagine that this single grain of rice on your palm consists of at least 10 billion (10,000,000,000) atoms. Wow! Isn’t that amazing?

Grains of Rice

Now, if we start breaking the grain of rice into smaller pieces, then we have to break it into 10,000,000,000 small pieces before we can get a single atom. It is important to note here that an atom cannot be broken down further into smaller particles by any physical or chemical means. However, we can break it into smaller particles by nuclear methods. We will learn about physical, chemical, or nuclear methods later in another topic.

Representation of DNA

Let’s investigate further.

All of us are aware of block toys. In this game, we use blocks of various types and colors to build different types of items like houses, cars, robots, etc. Similarly, in the real world atoms act as building blocks that make all things around us. Different types of atoms join to make different kinds of items.

Building blocks

Definition

A simple definition of the atom for kids in 5th grade –

Atoms are a basic building block of all things around us. It is not possible to break them further in smaller particles by any physical or chemical means.

As of date, mankind knows about 118 types of atoms. The hydrogen atom is the smallest and the atom of Ununoctium is the largest in size. To learn more about the structure of atoms, click here.