Before I sit down to write a single letter of calligraphy or work through a lesson with my students, I warm up. Every time. And in my latest YouTube video, I'm inviting you to warm up right alongside me — in real time, not sped up — so you can see exactly what a focused cursive penmanship practice session actually looks like.
▶ Watch: Cursive Penmanship Practice and Warm Up Drills on YouTube
Why Warm-Ups Matter in Cursive Handwriting
Think of penmanship warm-ups the way a musician thinks of scales, or the way an athlete thinks of stretching before a game. You wouldn't sit down at a piano recital cold and expect your fingers to fly. The same is true for handwriting.
Cursive writing uses fine motor muscles that need to be woken up before you ask them to do their best work. A proper warm-up session gets your hand, wrist, and arm moving in the right patterns — loosening up the movement, finding your rhythm, and reminding your muscle memory of the forms before you commit ink to important paper.
For my students in The Cursive Connection, warm-ups are a built-in part of every lesson. But you don't have to be enrolled in a formal curriculum to benefit from this practice. Whether you're a beginner just learning cursive, an adult who wants to improve their everyday handwriting, or a homeschool parent working through cursive with your kids, a short warm-up session before you practice can make a noticeable difference in the quality and consistency of your writing.
What's Inside the Video
In this video, I'm doing exactly what I do before my own practice sessions — no performance, no sped-up editing, just real cursive penmanship practice at natural speed so you can follow along with your own paper and pen.
You'll see me work through:
Oval and curve drills — the foundational movements that show up in nearly every cursive letter. Getting these smooth and consistent is the single biggest thing you can do to improve your handwriting.
Undercurve and overcurve strokes — the building blocks of the lowercase alphabet in traditional cursive. If your letters feel choppy or disconnected, these drills are exactly what you need.
Letter families and connective strokes — cursive is a flowing, connected script, and practicing the connections between letters is just as important as practicing the letters themselves.
Rhythm and repetition — one of the things I love most about warm-ups is the meditative quality of moving through the same strokes over and over. There's something almost calming about it once you get into the flow.
The whole session is done at real speed, which means you can literally press play and practice alongside me. Grab a pencil, a pen, or whatever you have on hand — even a regular Bic works beautifully for warm-up drills.
The Best Tools for Cursive Practice Warm-Ups
You don't need anything fancy to get started, but having the right tools does make practice more enjoyable. Here's what I typically reach for during my own warm-up sessions:
A smooth, consistent pencil is perfect for beginners — it's forgiving, erasable, and lets you focus entirely on form. I love the Stabilo pencil and the Faber-Castell triangle pencil for practice.
For those who want a little more feedback from their writing instrument, a gel pen is a great step up. The Gelly Roll is a longtime favorite in our community for a reason — it flows smoothly without requiring pressure, which encourages the light touch that good cursive depends on.
Lined or guided paper with the appropriate letter height helps you maintain consistent sizing from letter to letter, which is one of the biggest factors in making handwriting look polished and intentional.
You can find a lot of the supplies I use and recommend over at Simply Lettered Shop.
Penmanship Practice for Homeschoolers
If you're a homeschool parent working through cursive with your children, this video is for you too. One of the most common questions I get is how much time should we spend on cursive each day? My answer is almost always: less than you think, but more consistently than you might expect.
Short, focused practice sessions — even just 10 to 15 minutes — done regularly will build skill far faster than longer, infrequent sessions. And starting each session with a quick warm-up (just a few minutes of the drills you'll see in the video) sets a focused, intentional tone that helps kids settle in and do their best work.
This is one of the core principles behind The Cursive Connection, the cursive curriculum I created for homeschool families and independent learners. The 40-week program is structured around exactly this kind of consistent, progressive practice — building foundational strokes before letters, letters before words, and words before sentences, so that every skill is solidly in place before moving on to the next.
Follow Along and Practice With Me
I made this video specifically so you'd have something to sit down with and actually use. So if you've been wanting to work on your cursive — whether you're picking it back up after years away or practicing alongside your kids — press play and let's warm up together.
If you find it helpful, I'd love it if you'd give it a like and subscribe to the channel so you don't miss future tutorials and practice sessions. New videos go up regularly, and there's a lot more coming this year.
▶ Watch the Cursive Penmanship Warm-Up Drills video here
And if you're ready to go deeper into a full cursive curriculum, come visit The Cursive Connection. It's everything you need, all in one place — because words never lose their value, especially when they're written by hand.