Okay! So, think of numbers like toys. When you add, it’s like putting toys together. If you have 2 toy cars and your friend gives you 3 more, you count them all together and have 5 toy cars!
Now, when we multiply, it's like having groups of toys. If you have 3 boxes and each box has 2 toy cars, you can count them all: 2 cars in the first box, 2 in the second, and 2 in the third. That’s 2 + 2 + 2, which is the same as saying 3 groups of 2, and that means you have 6 toy cars!
Exponents are a bit like super multiplying! It’s like saying how many times you want to multiply something. If you have 2 toy cars and you want to double them, that’s like multiplying. But if you want to double the doubling—that's like using an exponent! So 2 squared (which is written as 2²) means 2 × 2, and that gives you 4 toy cars.
So remember: adding is like counting toys, multiplying is like having groups of toys, and exponents are like supercharging your multiplying! Isn’t that cool?