Just dawned on me that you have two threads going, this can be confusing.
So for this thread we will do a basic tutorial and leave all the details of your project in the other thread that way we will stay on the same page with out getting lost.
- Create a new document
- Select the rectangle tool in the left tool bar, then in the top tool bar on left side make sure it is set to shape and not paths or image.
- Drag out a rectangle onto the document about a 1/3 of the document or smaller so we have room.
- To change the color of this rectangle double click on the color swatch in the layers panel for that layer. (a color dialog box should pop up and choose any color you like)
- press the a key on keyboard to access the direct selection tool
- hold down the opt/alt key (opt for mac/alt for windows)
- Drag the rectangle away from the rectangle
- You should now see two rectangles. In the layers panel you should have two layers for rectangles
- You can now change the color of this rectangle if you choose to.
- Repeat the process to create a third and a fourth rectangle.
- In the layers panel Click on the top rectangle layer
- Hold down the shift key and select the bottom rectangle layer
- Assuming the direct selection tool is still active (if not press a) Drag across all the rectangles so all of them are selected
- In the top tool bar try out the alignment tools, first try the distribute icons see how the middle rectangle divide equally distance wise with the outside rectangles, then try aligning all of the rectangle so one side of each matches (since I do not know the direction of the rectangles you would choose left if they are in a vertical orientation and bottom if they are in a horizontal orientation.)
- Now select a single rectangle by clicking on just one of them, if necessary you can click on the background to unselect the rectangles
- Try using your arrows keys then try the arrow key with the shift key held down, then try the cmd key and finally the opt key, so you can see what each does to the arrow keys.
Now lets make it a bit harder, select all of the rectangles and align them to left and top, so the are all on top of each other.
- In the layers panel select only one of the rectangle layers,
- Choose the move tool (v)
- Now drag with your mouse, as you can see you do not need to select any of the rectangle in this instance By selecting one or more layers, you can move them around and not affect the others.
- Now try to re-align the rectangles to they are all in a straight row.
If you were able to accomplish all of this, you are doing excellent.