My early days included building my Heathkit H-8 computer from bits, designing and building custom boards and writing devices drivers for the new hardware. You were definitely further along than I was during that era. But, I have purchased and put together quite a few electronics kits over the years. Before that I loved books by Alfred P. Morgan which were mostly published before the electronics age. I put together quite a few interesting electrical projects from his books.
https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Boy_Electrician/6tYyAQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA1&printsec=frontcover
Most of the kits I put together required soldering components onto a pcb, a couple were from Heathkit. But my first “digital” kit was given to me by a teacher when I was in the 5th grade and required no soldering. Unfortunately, I have had multiple head injuries in my life so I am having a hard time remembering the specifics, but I believe that it's highlights were some type of crude IC chip and an LED array that could form a digit.
My parents gave me a "64 in 1" kit about the same time where the components were attached to a piece of cardboard and you could assemble a radio, a siren, a metal detector, and a bunch of other interesting little tidbits by wiring from one spring to another. I went through them pretty fast so they bought me a "200 in 1" kit and then a better “digital” kit that what my teacher had given me.
Of course after that I began collecting electronic "breadboards" and components to experiment with which could be easily pulled back apart and repurposed when I lost interest in a project.
I was able to play a very little bit with computers owned by friends in the early days of "home computers", but the first actual computer that I purchased was a Texas Instruments TI/994A home computer when they went on sale at Kmart one Christmas.
Morgan's books were some of my first serious reading in 2nd grade. I had a basic grasp of bell/battery/switch circuits for "show and tell" in 1st grade, but no access to a library. The bookshelf was well stocked with books on electricity and electronics by 2nd grade. Morgan's books were a good start on reading schematics and understanding simple tube circuits including amplifiers and oscillators. My 3rd grade library was less well stocked, but Morgan's books were still there. 4th grade I returned to the same school in Chula Vista as 2nd grade. I was digging into Tesla's writings. Moving onward to 7th grade, I was in Boy Scouts. Naturally, I zipped through the Electricity, Radio, Electronics and Signalling merit badges. By then I had mastered the solid state components and some basic integrated circuits. I didn't do a lot of electronics again until college physics ignited my interest again. At that point, I grabbed the AMECO theory/test prep books and earned an amateur radio Tech class license, then 2nd class Radiotelephone. I upgraded those over time to First Class Radiotelephone with Ship's Radar endorsement and Amateur Extra Class. The latter licenses were my excuse to work in marine electronics for a few years. Good hands-on experience with radar, sonar, VHF FM radio, SSB radio, fax, satellite navigation, telephone systems and PA systems.
All of that started with curiosity, a library and parents who made available some electronics kits when I was very young. I think we were fortunate to grow up at a time when the resources were there to build a breadth of skills.