A file is like a digital container that holds information—it could be a document, a picture, a song, or a video. Every file has a name and a type (shown by the ending, like .txt or .jpg). Files live inside folders on your computer where you can find them later.
Show children different types of files on their computer—a text document, a photo, a video—and point out the different file endings. Let them open a file to see what's inside.
Think about a piece of paper with writing on it. The writing is the information, and the paper holds it. A file is the same idea, but digital — it's a container that holds information, stored on your computer so you can find and use it again later. Just like paper, a file just sits there waiting until you decide to open it or use it.
Every file has two important parts: its name and its type. The name is what you call it — like "my drawing" or "birthday list." The type tells the computer what kind of information is inside. You can usually see the type at the end of the name after a dot — that's called the file extension. A file called "story.txt" is a text file (just words). A file called "photo.jpg" is a picture. A file called "song.mp3" is audio. The extension is part of the full name, but it tells the computer (and you) what program should open it.
One of the most important things to know about files is that they don't disappear when you close them. Closing a window is like putting a book back on a shelf — the book is still there, you just can't see it anymore. The file lives on your computer's storage (its hard drive) and stays there until you decide to delete it. This is different from the work you're doing *in* the file — if you write something new and close without saving, that new writing might be lost. But the file itself stays put.
Files live inside folders (your next topic), which work like drawers or boxes that keep related files organized together. For now, the key idea is this: a file is a named container of information that lives on your computer, has a type shown by its extension, and stays there until you choose to move or delete it.