Welcome to RCU! I see this is your first post. Well you've found the best place on the net to get information regarding RC flight for beginners. I come from the camp that dislikes foam planes. So I can not help you with info regarding the construction of such planes. However, maybe I can persuade you to come back to the light side of the hobby If you want to build a plane but have not for a decade or so, you are in for a treat. Some of these kits with their laser cut parts are more like assembling a jigsaw puzzle than building a plane... you would have to try to screw it up. One such plane that I have personal experience with is the Herr [link=http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXZS57&P=7]Cloud Ranger[/link]. This is a small trainer that can be built as a 3 or 4 channel model and can be built for nitro engine or electric motor power.

Here is a link to a [link=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cl6YWqi0LY]video[/link] of my Cloud Ranger. I will say though that I over powered my cloud ranger to get it to fly like this. Since you want to teach your sone to fly I would recomend a lower power electric set up. Mine is powered with an OS .10 la.