Even your body is made from a collection of these elements.
If your body was broken down to separate piles of these elements you would be worth about two American Dollars.

Elements can be combined to make other chemicals. For example, combining Hydrogen and Oxygen we get water.

The smallest bit of an element that can exist is called an ATOM.
If we could look inside an atom we would see a central NUCLEUS with one or more ELECTRONS in orbit around it, looking rather like a miniature solar system.
Electrons can be knocked out of orbit by an external force.

The nucleus has a positive CHARGE while the electron has a negative one.

An electric current is a flow of electrons (displaced from their orbits) through wires and electronic components.
It can be likened to the flow of water through pipes and radiators etc.
As water is pushed through pipes by a pump, electric current is pushed through wires by a battery.
Hot water does work by heating radiators.
Electric current does work by heating fires, lighting lamps, ringing bells, electroplating etc.

A basic law of the universe is that like charges repel and unlike attract. Two negatives will repel each other. A negative and a positive will attract each other.
The negative (-ve) terminal of a battery will push negative electrons along a wire.
The positive (+ve) terminal of a battery will attract negative electrons along a wire.

Electric current will therefore flow from the -ve terminal of a battery, through the lamp, to the positive terminal.

The current flows around the circuit.

In some books current is said to flow from +ve to -ve. This was guessed at before the electron was discovered. They guessed wrong! This is called conventional current flow.