How do you add widgets to your home screen?

An Android widget is like a regular icon for an app, in that when touched it opens that app. The difference between a simple icon for an app and a widget for an app,  though, is that a widget has a smaller or simplified version of the app right there on your homepage, as well as linking to the full app. This is a screenshot of my current home page, with the top three items widgets (unfortunately my Starbucks widget doesn't fit on this page, and is pushed out to screen 2):

Let's take The Weather Channel app and widget as an example. You download the Weather Channel app from the Google Play Store, and you set the icon on your homepage. Now when you touch that icon, you get to the weather page, where you can see the forecast for your location. The widget for the Weather Channel app, however, will show you what location's weather is currently showing, the current temperature, and the high/low for today and tomorrow... all constantly visible on your home page (or whichever page you put the widget on). If you touch the widget, you'll be brought to the full weather.com app, where you can see the 10-day forecast, hourly forecast, change locations, etc.

If you touch and hold a blank spot on your home screen, you will see the option for widgets. Touch that and you'll be brought to a list of all widgets available for your currently-installed apps. A widget will not show up in this menu if you don't have the app installed... part of installing the app will be adding its widget to the list, if it has that capability.

This feature is a really special aspect of Android, that iPhone users envy. The ability to actually see a bit of info or do a little something without opening the app is a very useful feature that you should start to take advantage of, if you don't already.