A lot of good advice on here.... Just as an aside, if you have kids especially, the "BrainBox" kits are really cool for playing around. For instance http://

A lot of good advice on here.... Just as an aside, if you have kids especially, the "BrainBox" kits are really cool for playing around. For instance http://www.cambridgebrainbox.com/Explorer2.html http://www.cambridgebrainbox.com/Explorer2.html they come with a bunch of passive / active components to play with. I found I could demo a lot of principles to my son and we could play around with ideas. It's probably not going to last you more than a week in terms of learning electronics, but it makes playing with simple circuits super easy.