http://eli.thegreenplace.net/category/programming/python/pygame-tutorial/
I found this 4 part article to be pretty good. He shows a couple iterations on improving the same game and in the end, produces something of a reasonably high quality. It shows examples of many things that I often wondered "what would be the best way to do THIS", so it's helped a lot in my own learning about programming. Admittedly though, it might be more appropriate for later on in a class as it's not really all total beginner stuff.
