After You've Survived Your First Night in Minecraft

Some of you may have seen Minecraft videos where the players have managed to craft a home and diamond armor by the end of the second day, but I think most players will be happy to have made a safe shelter and some tools and weapons. 

So what do you do next? My suggestions:  

Make torches - A torch requires only a stick and a piece of coal, and you can make it in your 2 by 2 crafting table.  Torches are important because most hostile monsters spawn in darkness and you don't want to encourage them.

Make a torch with a block of coal and a stick.
Make a stick with two planks.

Make a furnace - you only need nine blocks of cobblestone to make a furnace, and you need one to smelt ore to make upgraded weapons and armor.  The first fuel for a furnace is usually coal, but you can also use wood, bamboo, sticks, wool, leaf litter, and dead bushes as well as wooden weapons and tools you don't need anymore.  

Make a furnace

Make A bed (moveable spawn site): Hostile monsters spawn in the dark when you stay up at night. If you sleep at night you aren't attracting more monster.  A bed also serves as a moveable re-spawn position so that you don't have to keep returning to your original spawn site if you should die. Making a bed requires only three wool and three planks.  

Make a bed. You can color the wool with dyes or
use naturally-colored wool. 

Now, I don't kill sheep, so I have to mine and smelt ore to get iron to make clippers so that I can shear sheep for their wool. You do what you want.

Make shears.
Note you can make this in your small crafting grid.

A sheared sheep - the wool will grow back pretty fast.

Make a garden: To start all you need is a hoe and some seeds*. Having a water source nearby is good, but seeds can grow without irrigation.

Make a hoe with sticks and planks.

Make a bucket

Buckets can carry water, lava, and milk.

Make a four-block water source.

More useful things to make:

Doors only require six planks.

Different woods make different door designs.

Make pressure plates: Use pressure plates inside the door. Put the pressure plates on the inside in front of the door so that you step on them as you leave, and the door will close behind you.

Make Windows: A hole in the side of your shelter will let in light. 

Make one or more boats - 

The type of wood determines the boat texture.
To make a pink boat use cherrywood.

Uses for boats:

- To sail and explore. 

- You can fish from a boat.

- Monster traps: Leave one or more boats outside while you stay awake and you may find them full of monsters in the morning. 

I stayed awake overnight. The drowned threw tridents in the morning
before they despawned. Zombies usually just burn up in the morning
without throwing things at you. Unfortunately, harmless mobs also
seem to like boating and you will have to evict then,

- Boats can be used on land to move kidnapped villagers, and can be used as a fast transport system.

- Sometimes you can get in a boat and go over a cliff and avoid fall damage, but there is no guarantee it will always work.

There are thousands more things you can do or make, but these are a start. 

------------------------------------------------------

*get wheat seeds by punching grass. You may also start other crops (carrots, potatoes, beets, melons, pumpkins, etc..) from what you find foraging or from monster drops. Not all crops require you to hoe the ground first. Sugar cane needs a water block on one side. More info whenever I get around to writing an article about gardening.