COEUR d’ALENE — For one hour every Friday, Venture High School students find their zen.

This comes in the form of wellness classes that include painting, dancing, tinkering, creating, interior design and simply unplugging from the stress of daily life. It’s a time for them to express themselves while exploring hobbies and interests that may not otherwise be available.

“I think that they’re pretty neat," sophomore Kian Jonquet said Friday morning, applying black watercolor paint to a drawing. "I like that I can focus for an hour on doing what I want to do. I like the idea of them and I think they could bring a lot more different ideas into it, too."

This is the first school year Venture has implemented the wellness classes, which help students achieve an overall wellness by giving their brains a break. Venture doesn't have traditional electives like other high schools, so these classes also fill that void. They've been built into the Friday advisory period so every student participates.

"A lot of our kids, they’re just doing the daily grind," said school counselor Rachelle Smotherman, who coordinates the program with other staff members.

"They have a lot of responsibilities at home with younger siblings, their parents. They come to school and they don’t have anybody offering or teaching them things like ‘Would you like to learn how to play guitar? Would you like to try yoga?’” she said. “It’s really about self-exploration and enriching their lives."

The classes rotate each trimester (Venture's school year is split into three segments, not two) so students have opportunities to change their wellness elective every six weeks. The cost is minimal or nothing, depending on materials, and the funding comes from the school's budget. The classes are generally taught by Venture teachers, although a few professionals in the community have been invited to share their expertise with the students.

Activities take place throughout the school. In Nick Meeks' classroom, wellness students worked on sensory boards and books that will be donated to a local developmental preschool.

"I struggle with sensory issues myself, and I went to a developmental preschool when I was really young," said junior Oliver Martinez. "I thought, 'Oh, I could give back to that.' I was nonverbal when I was like 2, and I just wouldn't talk, so my mom sent me to the preschool. I learned a lot. I learned some sign language so I could talk to the other kids, and I was like talking within just a month of being there. They worked with me and they taught me a lot."

She said the wellness classes are therapeutic.

"It gives me something to focus on when I'm bored or restless," she said. "Halfway through the day, I shake my leg a lot and I get nervous, but this helps me calm down a bit and focus on something else that isn't my brain being all crazy."

In another class, Venture senior Shaden Silva delicately used a hot glue gun to put together a to-scale model of a shed.

"I've currently finished three walls and I'm working on the wall that has the window," he said, showing the different pieces of his model.

Last trimester, Shaden took guitar lessons for his wellness classes.

"It's just fun and it's interactive," he said. "It's a way to have real-world skills and teach people new things that maybe they didn't know how to do."