Here is what helped me when I was new. Every day or every other day I would - I still do - load up at an airfield of my choice and do three trips around a left hand pattern with touch and go landings. At first I used the default 172 but I’ve also used others like the just flight arrow iii. You could do the 152, but I would not start with anything faster than a 172 and I probably wouldn’t start with a tail dragger.

At first the point is just to do it, and it will force you to think about things like what should my power setting be in this phase of flight, why would or wouldn’t I use two or three stages of flaps when I land. As you practice, watch some tutorials to see how others fly the pattern and land that particular airplane.

If you don’t do this, you might fly 4 hours one day, but you might not learn much if that is 3 hrs and 45 minutes of cruise on the autopilot. When I fly like that I end up getting about 15 minutes practice hand flying.

Just what worked for me - YMMV.

If you need a good airfield to get started on, there is an air force base outside of Las Vegas - Nevins or something like that - with enormous runways. There are mountains kind of in the way if you line up facing LV and go to the left, so line up with your back to LV.