The example projects are at the link named "Spartan-3E Starter Kit Reference Designs". Or click here:
**broken link removed**
Most of the example designs use the PicoBlaze CPU core (free) or the MicroBlaze CPU core (EDK costs $500). Those may not be good examples for a beginner. A good starting project may be the "rotary encoder interface".
Before buying a Xilinx kit, you can download various PDF manuals for the board and FPGA. You can even download and install the ISE WebPACK development software (it's free). If you buy the kit from Digilent instead of Xilinx, you'll probably get different accessories in the box, so check carefully.