A ton is a way to talk about something that is really, really heavy. Imagine if you had a big pile of your favorite toys, like blocks or cars. Now, imagine if you had a thousand piles just like that one. All those piles together would weigh about the same as a ton! It’s like trying to lift an elephant or a small car. That’s how heavy a ton is!
Another way to think about a ton is through ice cream. If you had a ton of ice cream, it would be enough to fill up a whole room from the floor to the ceiling. That’s a lot of ice cream! So, when people say something weighs a ton, they mean it’s really, really heavy, like a mountain of ice cream or a giant stack of toys.
Sometimes, people say “a ton” just to mean “a lot” of something, not just weight. Like, if you have a ton of homework, it means you have a whole bunch to do, not that your homework is heavy like an elephant. It’s just a way to say there’s a lot of it!