Nursery Schools

They show up with lunch sacks and stuffed bears, an occasional doll. On Wednesday morning, most simply walked up the sidewalk with their parents in tow to the green, wrought-iron gate. One arrived in a shiny, black Audi SUV whose driver popped out to open the huge door for his charge. After a moment, a pair of tiny feet clad in hot-pink Crocs sandals dangled out and another youngster headed into the First Presbyterian Nursery School in Santa Monica. They are preschoolers.

How do you make a pizza shaped like a foot? Or an elbow? What about a hand? Tough questions, but not for a group of preschoolers at Vanalden Avenue Children's Center in Reseda, where "Miss Priscilla" has been a kind of artist-in-residence for the past seven weeks. Using nothing more than elastic bands and her limbs, she challenged the 20 children to stretch the straps into a variety of make-believe foods during a noisy, playful session Thursday morning. Afterward, it was time to say goodbye.

How do you make a foot pizza? Or an elbow pizza? What about a hand pizza? Tough questions, but not for a group of preschoolers at Vanalden Avenue Children's Center in Reseda, where "Miss Priscilla" has been a kind of artist-in-residence for the last seven weeks. Using nothing more than elastic bands and her limbs, she challenged the 20 children to stretch the straps into a variety of make-believe foods during a noisy, playful session Thursday morning. Afterward, it was time to say goodbye.

The Pasadena neighborhood looks like the set of "Leave It to Beaver"--rambling old bungalows, big camphor trees. But as is always the case with suburbia, there's more going on than immediately meets the eye. Beyond the emerald lawns and neat porches, beneath the magnolias and palms, the community around Euclid Avenue is being torn apart, and by the most unlikely of civic pests: an 83-year-old nursery school that, by the letter of the city law, has 15 potty-trained preschoolers too many.

Like a modern-day Solomon, a Pasadena zoning officer decided Wednesday night to split the difference to try to settle a heated dispute over whether to let a renowned nursery school increase its enrollment from 65 to 80.

The preschool children approached the reptiles with a mixture of curiosity and trepidation. "Yikes! I don't like that one," exclaimed Elizabeth Meyers of Temple Beth Emet Preschool as a South American boa constrictor was lifted out of its box. Elizabeth, 4, decided not to touch the creature, brought to the school Wednesday by Wes Pollock of Los Angeles-based Alligator Al's Traveling Reptile Pals as part of a program to introduce the 16 preschoolers to exotic reptiles.

The triangular plot of land looked more like a dirt pile than a garden when they began. But the 3-, 4- and 5-year-olds at Cleveland High's on-campus preschool will soon see the fruits--and vegetables--of their labors.

A city zoning official will hold public hearings April 8 to consider granting permission for a preschool expansion in North Hollywood and an increase in the number of entertainment venues in a Woodland Hills restaurant. Applicants have requested: * A conditional-use permit to expand a preschool on Coldwater Canyon Avenue north of Vose Street in North Hollywood by 800 square feet to 1,830 square feet.

Parents can enroll 3 1/2- to 4 1/2-year-old children in a new preschool program sponsored by the city of San Fernando. The Tiny Tot Pre-School program, which begins Wednesday at Recreation Park, 208 Park Ave. in San Fernando, will be offered from 9 to 11 a.m. Mondays and Wednesdays. The monthly fee is $20.

Anneliese Schimmelpfennig is, believe it or not, a household name in South County. Thousands of students--"too many to count"--have attended her three private schools in Laguna Beach since 1968. Nearly 400 students attend now and there is a waiting list through mid-June. Do not expect only liberal, free-form schooling from Schimmelpfennig. She has her rules, including no television time and no calculators or computer games. "I wish there wasn't a television.