My son and I would like to build a circuit board that can light a short strip of led bulbs, for about an hour+, that is activated by a loud sound.

I'd like to run it on as small of a battery as possible.
Have a reset button for the lights and microphone.
Something to adjust the microphone sensitivity.

I don't know anything about circuit boards and I have never built one. Can you point me to some resources that would teach me how to wire it, which parts I might need and where I can get the parts?
thanks

 

What you are describing sounds a lot like "The Clapper", except that you just want to light LEDs instead of switch an outlet. You can find a lot of "Clapper" circuits out there.

 

Besides searching for "clapper circuits", you can also search for "sound activated switch circuit". This site has several such circuits, for various modes of operation.