What are reactants?

A reactant is like the starting ingredient in a recipe that helps make something new.

Imagine you're making a sandwich. You have bread and peanut butter, those are your reactants. When you put them together, you get a tasty snack, that’s like the result of a chemical reaction!

Think of reactants as building blocks. Just like you need legos to build a tower, you need reactants to make new things in science. They’re the ones that change or join together during a reaction.

When you light a match, the wood and oxygen are the reactants. The flame is what happens when they combine, like magic, but not too magical! It’s just the way things work when they meet up and do their thing.