My first ever electronics project was an altoids tin with two 9Vs, a 7805, and a USB port on a piece of protoboard I found in my grandfather's old electronics parts bins. I followed an Instructable to make it. After that, I was hooked. My next project was a dice roller I got from a copy of Make magazine. I ordered most of the parts off digikey. I loved the little projects in Make magazine, I thought it was so cool that you could just build your own electronics.
Other, less capable (1802 & 6502 processors) Altoid computers:
https://www.retrotechnology.com/memship/memship.html
https://www.reddit.com/r/beneater/comments/15k19xp/be6502_in...
Kidding lol.
Nice to see a wholesome post every once in a while. Its good to fuel their passions and interests when young. Keep it up man.