Fun and educational, this latest addition to the Sims, for both Wii and Nintendo DS, lets you manage the plants and animals from a typical peaceful northern forest. Our testers found the game to be easy to learn and hard to stop playing. As educators, we were happy to see some authentic animal facts mixed into an excellent higher order thinking opportunity.

You are represented by a large, on-screen hand that you move with the Wii Remote or DS stylus. You can pick up a fox and place it next to a squirrel to see how they behave, or toss an ornery skunk into a stream. Don’t worry — if the fox decides to eat the squirrel, you only see a cloud of dust. There’s no graphic violence or other worrisome content in this open-ended experience.

You start by taking a tutorial that shows you the essentials — how to shake a tree to dislodge an acorn; and then either store in your backpack for use later, or perhaps place it next to a squirrel to make it happy. Placing your hand over any water makes a rain cloud, which you can move over a seed to make it sprout into a tree. Once the squirrel is happy with you (as indicated with a small bar graph) you can move to the next part of your forest to increase other happiness levels. Your goal is to get all 34 animals and 60 plants in balance; if you do, you can unlock the next area of the forest, with a harder set of challenges.

A reference encyclopedia helps you learn which plants grow better in damp soil, and that certain animals need others animals to survive. While the facts are real, there’s a range of fun fictional elements, which keeps the game moving along. The Wii version makes it easy to play cooperatively with up to four players, on the same screen. You just pick up a controller and the game dumps you in, Nunchuk optional. The Nintendo DS version includes features such as the ability to blow into the microphone to become the wind to spread blossoms or knock fruit down from the trees. Both versions require a bit of reading in order to understand the challenges. One flaw with the Wii version is that saving your progress isn’t automatic or obvious, resulting in a disaster when a child loses an evening’s work. If you’re looking for a wonderful higher order thinking experience, get this game, and don’t tell the kids they’re learning about ecosystems. Prices are $50 for the Wii and $30 for the DS version.

Details: Electronic Arts, Ages: 10 years and up. Platform: Wii, Nintendo DS.

Link to buy SimAnimals