So,

The way that I learned how to program in emacs lisp was mainly using two
commands `elisp-index-search' bound to `C-h e' on my system, and most
importantly `describe-function' bound to `C-h f'.  With
`describe-function' you can look at the source code of functions whose
behavior you are familiar with, you can then copy portions of the code
to your *scratch* buffer where they can be edited and evaluated with
`eval-defun' bound to `C-M-x'.  Now with Babel, instead of doing this in
the scratch buffer you could do this in emacs-lisp code blocks in an org
file, enabling notes and hierarchical organization -- it can be nice to
have your noodling all collected in one file for later reference.

If you are going to do any serious work with lisp, I would emphatically
recommend using paredit-mode, and becoming friends with the Sexp
movement functions