Learning to play and build in Minecraft -- help for the beginning Crafter

Dear Minecraft Beginner,

I hope that this record of my own explorations in the exciting new worlds of Minecraft will help you with yours... so, let's go explore!

So -- last time I left you with some Youtube videos and a few definitions. This time I will give you a few basic crafting recipes and something neat I discovered for those interested in building cool buildings. (I admit, I am a closet architect at heart ;)

We will begin with the assumption that the world on which you are playing is set to Survival, Adventure, or Hardcore. Monsters may be turned on or not. There are several different modes within such worlds: Peaceful (Monsters, if on, will not attack), Easy, Normal, and Hard. Monsters, by the way, are not all bad. Besides the fact that it is fun to battle monsters, when you kill a monsters -- Zombies, Creepers, Gasts, Skeletons, Endermen, spiders etc -- there is always the possibility that they might drop something valuable. Spiders drop spidersilk, for example. As you become more experienced in the game, you will discover that people actually deliberately spawn and even 'train' monsters to work for them...

So... when you first arrive in a world:

Your first job is to collect wood. You can do this with your hands.
You need wood so that you can make tools that will allow you to collect stone and coal.
You need coal so that you can make torches
You need torches because monsters spawn in the dark. If you build a house without a light source, monsters will spawn inside your house....
To make tools, you need crafting recipes. SO... here are the basic craft recipes that you will need:

Crafting recipes: ( Not needed if you in Creative mode):
When you click on the letter E, you will open up a box with four boxes:

When you put wood into one block, you will end up with wood planks.
Turn all your wood into planks.
When you put one set of planks into two squares (one a top the other) you will get 4 sticks. You will need these to make torches and tools. Put these into your inventory.
Put one set of planks into each of the 4 boxes and you will create a Crafting Table

With a Crafting Table you can now make Tools:
To make an ax you put two sticks in two lower middle squares, then 3 planks in the upper 3 corner squares.
  (The ax allows you to chop wood faster)
To make a pickax, you put two sticks in the two lower middle square and 3 planks across the top squares.
  (The pickax allows you to mine stone and minerals like coal)
If you put one plank in each square around the outside, you will create a chest where you store your stuff.
If you put one stone block in each square around the outside, you will create a furnace in which you can cook food and smelt glass etc.
To make a torch, you place one stick in the lower square, and one piece of coal above the stick.

The link above has many more crafting recipes for you to explore. But this, I think, is enough to get you started. Have fun!