When I was a kid, in the year before we started learning cursive writing, we spent a long time[0] practicing drawing neat swirls and lines a few times a day in class. It was fun! And it definitely made a difference in preparing our fine motor skills for learning how to write. I know this for certain because for whatever reason[1] our recent government decided to drop that preparation part of children's education, and teachers have noted that handwriting has gone to crap within the span of a few years.

[0] Hard to say if it was weeks, months or a full year, because everything more than a day away is long when you're five.

[1] The answer, as always, is budget cuts: trying to spend less money on teachers and material and time. I find this especially infuriating because our centrist/right-wing politicians always claim that the progressive ones don't have a clue about economics, yet somehow are blind to the fact that good, accessible education as early as possible is one of the best long term ROIs a country can make.