The way waves move across the water is similar to how sound waves travel through the air. When you speak or shout, your vocal chords vibrate . These vibrations travel in all directions through the air as waves. When the waves reach our ears, they make our eardrums vibrate too, so we can hear the words. But to get to our ears, sound waves need to travel through the air, which vibrates.
Air is made up of particles, that move to make the sound waves.
The vibrating object, like your vocal chords, bump the air particles next to it. They then bump the particles next to them, and so on until the moving particles reach someone's eardrums. Most of the sounds we hear travel through the air, but sound waves can also move through water, wood, and metal. You can test this out for yourself. Everything that you can see has particles that can vibrate.