For teachers

Turn your word list into a worksheet.

Paste your spelling or vocabulary words into LexiLab and get back a printable crossword or word search with an answer key. It takes about two minutes, there is nothing to install, and neither you nor your students need an account.

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A worked example

Say Friday's spelling test covers fourteen words about weather, and you want a revision sheet for Thursday.

1. Open the Crossword Maker and paste your fourteen words into the box, one per line. No formatting, no template to fill in.
2. Click Generate. The tool interlocks as many of your words as it can and suggests a clue for each one, drawn from a dictionary rather than invented, so the clues are accurate out of the box.
3. Read the clues and rewrite any that do not fit how you taught the word. An edited clue stays put even if you regenerate the grid, so you can keep reshuffling the layout without losing your wording.
4. If fourteen words leave the grid looking sparse, set a target word count and pick a reading level. The tool tops the puzzle up with extra interlocking words, each badged so you can tell yours apart from its. Reroll or delete any you dislike.
5. Print. You get the worksheet on one page and the answer key on another, so you can keep the key back.

The Word Search Maker works the same way and is quicker still, since it needs no clues. Pick a difficulty preset, which controls whether words run backwards and diagonally, and print. It is the better choice for younger classes, for a cover lesson, or for the last ten minutes of a Friday.

Which tool for which lesson

Two of the eight tools were built for making worksheets. The other six are lookup tools, and several are more useful in a classroom than their names suggest.

If you want to	Use
Revise a spelling or vocabulary list	Crossword Maker, or the Word Search Maker when you want recognition rather than recall
Build a topic starter for a new unit	Crossword Maker, using the target word count to pad your key terms out with related vocabulary
Widen the words a student reaches for in writing	Synonym Finder, which groups results by meaning rather than dumping one long list, so a class can discuss why two synonyms are not interchangeable
Teach poetry, rhyme and syllables	Rhyme Finder, which separates perfect rhymes from near rhymes and groups both by syllable count
Run a letters-and-sounds or word-building activity	Anagram Generator, which also covers French, German, Spanish, Italian, Swedish, Danish and Norwegian for modern languages lessons
Help a student who is stuck on a puzzle	Crossword Helper, where you enter the letters already known and see what fits
Settle a classroom Scrabble club dispute	Scrabble Word Finder, which checks a word against the official tournament dictionaries

Links you can share with a class

Every tool keeps its current state in the address bar, so any lookup you set up can be handed to a class as a link. Set a tool the way you want it and copy the URL. They are ordinary links with nothing to sign into, so they work wherever you already share things with students: a learning management system such as Google Classroom, Microsoft Teams, Canvas, Moodle or Schoology, an email, or a QR code on a printed sheet.

Printing and projecting

Both makers print through your browser's normal print dialog, so there is no file to download and no PDF reader to fight with. The worksheet and the answer key land on separate pages. If the grid comes out small, print at 100% rather than Fit to page, and turn off headers and footers so the browser does not stamp a URL across the top of the sheet.

Sheets are laid out to work on both A4 and US Letter. For projecting, the tools follow your system's light or dark setting and there is a toggle in the top bar; light mode is usually the readable choice on a classroom projector.

What you do not have to deal with

• No account, for you or for your students. Nothing asks for an email address.
• No install, no extension, no plugin. It is a website.
• No paywall and no trial. Every feature is available to everyone.
• No watermark on the worksheets you print.
• The words you type stay in your browser. Puzzles are generated on your own machine, so your word list never reaches a server. LexiLab uses cookieless analytics that counts page views in aggregate and cannot identify a visitor or see what is typed into a tool.

If you use LexiLab with a class, we would love to hear your feedback and suggestions. Reach out at our contact page.

Questions

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