The Teletubbies website has been designed to allow children to have fun and explore in a safe environment and offers abundant opportunities for enjoyable learning. Kids are encouraged to "try and see what happens" with activities having different requirements of manual dexterity and conceptual understanding.

It is most rewarding when you use the activities as part of a loving, social experience for your young child - being together, sharing laughter and talking as you might with a book. Using the website in this way is a light-hearted, rich focus for language and concept development.

The site is divided into two parts - the Children's Site and the Parents and Teachers' Site.

You may find it beneficial to plan your visit, and get to know your way around the site in advance. Look at the site map in the Parents and Teachers' Site to see what is available and use the activity guide to review each online game and identify the developmental benefits. There are also suggestions for activities you can have fun with away from the computer.

Children will very quickly learn how to navigate around the "games area" and have fun clicking on different things to see what happens.

If your child has problems using the mouse at first, put your hand over hers and show her how to click the left hand button. There are plenty of opportunities in the site to learn and utilize different mouse skills.

Allow your child to take his time exploring - you may find he wants to play the same game over and over again - this is fine, repetition and the ability to predict what will happen next are important to early development.

Above all, have fun - together.

The games have been designed to work on as many computers as possible, however you may find that the games behave in strange ways if your web browser settings have been altered in any way from the default settings.

The first thing to check is that your browser has Javascript enabled. On some browsers Javascript is always enabled, so don't worry if you can't find this setting.

The second thing to check is that the browser cache has been cleared recently. The browser cache is simply a folder on your computer that is used by the web browser to store web pages you have already visited. If the cache hasn't been emptied recently then the Teletubbies site won't run smoothly. You can empty the browser cache of Internet Explorer and Netscape by following these easy steps:

In Internet Explorer

• Click on "Tools"
• Select "Internet Options..."
• In the second set of buttons choose "Delete files..."
• A window appears, click on "OK"
• Click on "OK" on the remaining window

In Netscape

• Click on "Edit"
• Select "Preferences..."
• Click on the "+" sign in front of "Advanced"
• Click on "Cache"
• Click on "Clear Memory Cache", a message appears, click on "OK"
• Click on "Clear Disk Cache", a message appears, click on "OK"
• Click on "OK" at the bottom

The non-flash games require a Javascript-enabled browser. It is very likely that you are already running a browser that supports Javascript. The Teletubbies games have been tested on the following platforms and browsers:

Microsoft Windows 98 through XP

• Internet Explorer (version 4+)
• Netscape Navigator (version 4+)
• Opera (version 6+)
• AOL (version 6+)
• Mozilla (version 1.6)
• Mozilla Firefox (version 0.8)

Apple MacOS 9

• Netscape Navigator (version 4+)

Apple MacOS X

• Internet Explorer (version 5+)
• Safari (version 1.0.2)
• Camino (version 0.7)
• Mozilla (version 1.6)
• Mozilla Firefox (version 0.8)

Sound in only available on Windows running Internet Explorer and you will need to have one of the following multi-media plugins installed on Windows to hear sound:

• Windows Media Player (version 7+)
• QuickTime (version 6+)
• RealPlayer (version 7 through G2)

For more tips on technical issues, go to the PBS Kids Techtips.