An element is the simplest piece of anything on Earth. When you see anything, it is made up of elements. Think of the letters in the alphabet. You could not write any words without letters. In the same way, you can't make anything without elements.
Elements are the letters and the words are the same as compounds.
One piece of an element is called an atom. When scientists organized the elements, they created something called the periodic table. Each element was given a symbol, a one or two letter abbreviation for the element. As you can see, the periodic table is organized like a big grid. The periodic table has rows and columns too, and they each mean something different.