Forest Friends at Blackacre Nature Preserve

06/03/2026

Fall Forest Friends enrollment is now open! 🍂🌿

Get ready for a season of creek adventures, animal visits, nature discoveries, stories, songs, and plenty of outdoor play at Blackacre!

🌱Little Seedlings (caregiver + child)
🌿Little Sprouts (drop-off program)

Programs begin the week of August 24.

Spaces are limited and tend to fill quickly!
Details and Registration at VisitBlackacre.org

Preserve the Future: Help expand & protect Blackacre for generations to come. Learn More → WHAT'S HAPPENING Upcoming Events View Full Calendar Farm Animal Feeding MAY 169:30 AM – 10:30 AM LEARN MORE → Food Preservation: Water Bath & Pressure Canning MAY 161:00 PM-5:00 PM LEARN MORE → Food P...

05/26/2026

Beep beep...we have some special visitors rolling into Story Time this week! 🚓🚒

Join us as we learn all about our community helpers while getting an up-close look at a real police car and firetruck! Your little ones can explore, learn, and meet some real-life heroes!

Story Time at Blackacre
Wednesday, May 27 | 10 AM (gate opens at 9:30)
$5 per carload

Details at VisitBlackacre.org!

05/23/2026

Our final week of Little Seedlings was full of sweet memories, muddy boots, and big imaginations.💛🌿

We talked about our favorite parts of forest school… bugs, mud, splashing, and feeding the cows! We tested boats in the creek, cooled off in the water, enjoyed popsicles, hid rubber duckies around the Nature Center, and searched for muddy puddles.

What a beautiful season of little adventures, friendships, and stories we’ll never forget. 💦

05/22/2026

Our Little Sprouts graduates celebrated with creek adventures, games, exploring the floating dock, feeding the fish, and of course…popsicles!🍦🐟☀️

Thank you to all the wonderful families who spent the season learning, exploring, and growing with us at Blackacre. We loved every muddy boot, tiny hand, and special memory along the way. 🌱

05/15/2026

Bug hunts, camouflage, and new friendships along the way 🐞🌿🤍
This week, our Little Seedlings became tiny nature detectives as they learned all about bugs and insects. We searched for creepy crawlies, examined what we found, and discovered that insects have 6 legs while spiders have 8.
Our Little Sprouts explored how animals blend perfectly into their surroundings and even practiced their own camouflage skills. Can you spot them hiding? 👀🌿
And somewhere between the bug hunts and nature walks, sweet friendships continued to bloom. Seeing little hands held tightly together might just be our favorite part of the week.💛

05/08/2026

Butterflies, baby goats, and a feathered visitor!🦋🐐🦃

Over in Froggy Forest, our wild turkey friend stopped by a couple mornings before the kids arrived for a little snack at the sensory bin.
Meanwhile, Little Seedlings filled the week with stories, butterfly crafts, and cuddles with sweet baby goat Julep.
And Little Sprouts got their hands dirty planting tomato seeds for their plant ID badges, then turned colorful flowers into beautiful tie-dye fabric masterpieces for Mother’s Day 🌸

Just another beautiful, messy, happy week on the preserve!

05/06/2026

Our feathered friend was back again today. Isn’t she beautiful?🦃

05/01/2026

Seeds, mud, and a little Derby fun 🌱🐎

Little Seedlings planted their barn planters (fingers crossed for tomatoes!🍅), played in the rain, and visited the goats—even catching them practicing for their big race tomorrow at our Farm Animal Feeding Celebration! 🐐💨

Little Sprouts got muddy making silly faces, spotted TWO kinds of animal tracks (badge earned!), and raced stick horses to wrap it all up.

Just another fun week on the preserve. Happy Derby!!🌹

04/24/2026

This week was full of wiggly, squiggly fun!🐛🌱
Little Sprouts got their hands dirty learning all about worms and made their own wormeries to take home—because even the tiniest wrigglers can make a BIG difference!💛
Little Seedlings fluttered into the world of caterpillars, butterflies, and metamorphosis, inspired by a real-life tent of eastern tent caterpillars in our cherry tree in Froggy Forest.🦋✨
The forest is full of tiny teachers—we’re just getting started!🌱

04/17/2026

What a week! Our Little Sprouts dove right into learning about mud—hands-on, messy, and full of giggles. Meanwhile, our Little Seedlings explored the amazing world of camouflage and how animals blend into their surroundings.

We’re always so grateful for our incredible teachers who make learning come alive in such joyful, memorable ways…even if it means ending up with a little mud on your face! 😉