What are reactants in chemical equations? what are the products

Reactants are initiators of a chemical reaction whereas products are substances produced as the end of that reaction.

Explanation:

In a chemical reaction, there are two categories of substances involved: reactants and products.

The reactants are those substances utilized in a chemical reaction which undergo certain changes to produce different substances at the end of the reaction known as products.

On can write a chemical equation as:

M+N→MN, where M and N are the reactants and MN is the product.

For example,

     Zn + S → ZnS

      |___|         ↓

Reactants      Products

As you can notice when writing a chemical equation, reactants are always written on left hand side of the arrow and the products on the right hand side.