how best to help ds handwriting during the holidays?

[onanightlikethis]

ds yr2 is at level 1c for writing. i have bought him some exercise books, and we are going to draw a toy of his choosing then write a few lines about it every day. is this enough or should we be doing spellings as well?

Work for work's sake?

I would do something more useful, such as writing a letter to grandparents, or getting him to write out a shopping list for cake ingredients.

I did that once with son. Did a diary. Key thing is to watch formation like a hawk as he writes. Wish I'd done same with s1. His terrible.

Sounds enough to me if your ds anything like mine! [Year 1, left hander who finds writing a chore]. Usually I don't do anything apart from reading in hols but we may do some 'silly sentences' to try and make writing 'fun'. No spellings though.

Set a song up on the iPod. If he's done it by the end of the dong it's over. Or I agree, a silly story that you praise as " hilarious"

Don't stress the spellings. I had three weeks with my y3 son the other month and we did letter formation, lines of letters - just a few times, though every day would have helped if he'd wanted to, but I didn't want to put him off or make it scary.
It really helped so much - his writing is much better. I spent ages making sure he understood how to make the letters properly which they just never had time for at school.
Back to basics and yes do it NOW before the habits become more ingrained - ds had got some coping mechanisms which were not terribly helpful to him so we tried to wipe those out and start again.
You can get good practise books, there's an MNer who sells a booklet on ebay with brilliant tips for helping children with writing.

Here

It's only a quid and I really rate it

My DS is also in Y1 (and is also a left hander who hates writing). His main trouble is writing on the lines, for example the stick on a 'b' will go to the top of the page and on a 'p' will go to the bottom of the page.

I intend to get him to write a couple of postcards and a small shopping list, stuff like that that doesn't feel like school work. He has an excercise book oo but he writes in it as and when not everyday.

I agree with the posters who talk about watching letter formation. It is really important.
You could try getting him to write large letters with chalk on a blackboard or on sugar paper taped to a door/wall. Children quite enjoy this type of activity and it is great for improving letter formation. If he is finding letter sizing difficult, you could pre-chalk lines to show where the main body of the letters, sticks and tails should go to. You could mess about, playing schools, sometimes getting him to be the teacher and you be the student (who keeps getting things wrong so that he has to keep showing you the right way! )
I wouldn't try and focus on too many things at once or he might get frustrated, so you could start by focusing on letter formation, say, and writing silly sentences, and then focus on spellings at a later date.