Thaumaturgy is very similar to Prestidigitation. It differs, however, in two important regards.

First, it’s exclusive to the cleric class.

Second, it sucks.

Druid’s don’t really have a wealth of cantrips to choose from relative to other spellcasting classes, but there are better options than Druidcraft.

Produce Flame isn’t particularly complicated: it's an average rate d8 damaging spell for druids that gives you a 30 ft. ranged d8 fire damage spell attack attached to your run of the mill Light spell.

If you want your druid to hit stuff with a stick, Shillelagh is a great way to do it. It doesn’t scale at all, which is a MASSIVE oversight to me, but seeing as you stop tending to cast a lot of cantrips in the mid to upper tiers anyway, it's not that major of a drawback.

Charm Person is about as one to one a spell can be to a condition. You pick a person and attempt to charm them. While charmed, they treat you as a friendly acquaintance. Simple. Elegant. Surprisingly lackluster in utility.

Color Spray is tricky. It works in a similar manner to Sleep, a spell I’m all about. You roll a hefty amount of dice, and with no saves allowed, affect a bunch of creatures with a certain amount of HP or less.

Languages are a largely flavorful tool offered to the various races and backgrounds in D&D. Most everyone uses common as a baseline in conversation. Occasionally you’ll encounter a band of creatures sharing an uncommon tongue, in which case a spare language might engage a one player who doesn’t normally deal as the party face. Comprehend Language is for the player who always wants to be that player: the party translator, if you will.

Detect Magic is on basically everyone but Warlock’s spell list, and they even get an innovation to get it at will. This means regardless of party composition, so long as SOMEBODY can cast spells, Detect Magic is on the table.

Disguise Self will slide easily onto any character sheet where hijinks are happening. It gives you a simple, cheap, concentration-less tool for looking like somebody else, and that has SO much potential.

Expeditious Retreat, as the name implies, is a fine spell for when you need to get the hell out of Dodge as quickly as possible. But it’s also a great spell for when you need to be able to move anywhere on the map at any given time.

False Life is one such source of temporary hit points, but even with the low cost of a single 1st level spell slot, I struggle to fit this in on characters who have spell slots to burn just because its actual impact is so minimal.

Wizards, bards, and sorcerers out there, if you’re unsure what other 1st level spell to take early, you can reliably fall back on Feather Fall. It isn’t necessarily splashy, but it absolutely saves lives. It's a team player effect your friends will be grateful you took.

I can’t find realistic use cases for this. It’s like a temporary, sluggish donkey you can’t even ride. It’s a footstool that can hold five-hundred pounds that is awkward to position after the initial cast. It's a spell that does a worse job at helping you explore an environment than mundane adventuring equipment, or even just random objects like rocks around you.

At its best, Fog Cloud can provide cover to bamboozle enemies, leaving them dumbfounded and fumbling trying to figure out which of the four possible directions you could have gone in. At its worst here, though, they pick out your sound and can move through the cloud fast enough to keep pace. Your mileage may vary.

Grease’s saving grace is how often it asks for saves. Creatures make the save on cast, if they enter the area, and if they end their turn in the area. With a party composed of a few martial melee characters, prone can be a major boon that reliably turns on sneak attack, offers advantage to tons of attack rolls, and in turn, turns up the quantity of critical hits the team’s making.

If you want to know what all the fuss is about over save or dies, Hideous Laughter is your crash course. Be prepared to spend 1st level slots and have no outcome occur; that is a real outcome that happens with these kinds of effects.

If you’re DMing for Identify, I’d look to open up its use as a tool to get information you want the players to have easily to them. This is a spell that asks players to observe and inspect your world. If they’re casting it, they want to learn.

If you want to do the big jumps and get people into fun places quickly, I’d recommend keeping the calculation reference on hand or getting you and your friends to actually record your jump distances somewhere on your sheets.

I don’t think most players ever need to cast Longstrider, nor should you really want to. It's not splashy, it's not Haste levels of speed increasing, it isn’t something that alters the party in a hugely meaningful way.