Defining Rocks vs. Minerals
The primary difference is that a mineral is a naturally occurring, inorganic solid with a specific chemical composition and an ordered internal crystalline structure. A rock is an aggregate, or a physical mixture, of one or more minerals or mineraloids.
A Simple Analogy
Think of minerals as the individual ingredients in a cookie, like flour, sugar, and chocolate chips. The rock is the finished cookie itself, made up of all those different ingredients combined. For example, the rock granite is composed of the minerals quartz, feldspar, and mica.