Imagine everything around you, your toys, the air you breathe, your dog, and even your own body, is made of microscopic building blocks. These building blocks are called atoms!
Think of atoms like the ultimate LEGO bricks of the universe. If you snap them together in different ways, you can build anything.
Atoms are not the smallest particles of matter; they are the smallest units of a chemical element that retain its unique chemical properties. This means an atom is the smallest possible piece of something (like gold, oxygen, or iron) that still behaves exactly like that specific ingredient.
But if you zoom in even closer with a super-powered science microscope, you would see that each atom LEGO brick is actually made of even tinier, magical pieces: