What are heads?

A head is like a special kind of container that holds information about something, like how many there are or what they’re called.

Imagine you're playing with your toys and you have 5 cars in front of you. If someone asks, “How many cars do you have?” you might say “five.” That number, five, is like a head telling you how many cars there are.

Now imagine instead of saying “five,” you write it down as 5. That’s also a kind of head, but in a more grown-up way. In the world of computers, these numbers or words that tell us about something are called heads too.

• If you have 3 apples, the number “3” is like a head that tells you how many apples there are.
• If your friend has a dog named Max, then “Max” is like a head that gives the dog a name.

Heads can be numbers or names, they help us understand what we're looking at. Just like counting your toys helps you know how many you have, heads help computers and people keep track of things!