During a recent class, the kids sat on their parents' laps, looking at images of Kandinsky paintings (yep, these are 2- and 3-year-olds) as Turner talked about how the artist "thought music was shape and colors." She encouraged the kids to "make an orchestra" by splashing paint on butcher paper while a teaching assistant strummed a guitar. In a Venni class later the same week, a visiting violinist played as each child improvised a dance with silk scarves. The kids dedicated their dances to different continents, which they'd been talking about during make-believe journeys in class.

Topics like geography and astronomy are frequently woven into the studio's activities. The spirit is always playful, with the ultimate goal being inspiration. For example, Turner shows kids pictures of the Sistine Chapel and has them paint a paper "ceiling" taped to a table above their heads—not so they'll be precociously well-versed in history, but so Michelangelo's ingenuity can spark their imaginations. "They say things like, 'I'm going to make the 17-Pretzel Chapel!'" she says. "That kind of extrapolation is wonderful."

Some parents who check out the program initially worry that it's a crunchy funfest that takes away time that could be spent on "real" learning—after all, kids can't imagine their way through future standardized tests, right? To that, Turner responds, "You get kids to learn by fostering their imaginations—by encouraging them to ask questions, to bend the questions, to assume there's something more than the information given to them." And child-development research over the years has suggested that young children process and learn about the world primarily through play. So while the studio doesn't stress academics, kids sometimes come home after playing a Northern Lights flashlight game in class knowing more about the Arctic than their parents do.

The program's success pivots on Turner, who leads most classes and has an uncanny ability to engage children. She's both childlike and in total control of the class as she leaps, sings, and runs through paint. And she understands that not all parents feel as comfortable in the role of playmate (in fact, she remembers her own father playing with her exactly once). "It's hard to tap into that childish part of yourself unless you're a natural goofball," she says. "But kids don't need a clown; they just want to be your sole focus." Turner believes playing with your kids is "a sure way to bond, because you're connecting with them in their world."

Which leads to another kind of breakthrough the studio tends to cultivate—one among parents. Many say it has helped them to rediscover that tiny part of themselves that remembers how strange and wonderful the world seemed when they were children, and to engage with their kids in more imaginative ways. "We're so used to thinking we need the props—this toy or that toy—to play with our kids," says Guskin. "Then you think, Wait a minute! Let's pretend we're on a ship, sailing the Atlantic! You realize you can create this whole game out of nothing, which is pretty amazing."

Hoping to bring her play-based philosophy beyond the little world of Park Slope, Turner is launching a series of children's DVDs. The first, My Imagination Flies ($17, Sunturns Productions), reflects the classroom experience with storytelling, dancing, and lots of talk about where your imagination can take you. Upcoming World Creative Play DVDs will lead kids on tours of various countries.

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