🧱 How to create a Crossword activity

The Crossword template is a classic word-puzzle game that challenges students to solve clues and fit intersecting words into a grid. It’s an excellent tool for vocabulary reinforcement and spelling practice.

IN THIS ARTICLE:

• How is the Crossword activity played?
• How and what do you type into Edit content for Crossword?
• Where can I find some more examples?

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How the activity is played

The game generates a dynamic grid based on your word list.

• The clues: When a student taps on a row or column, a clue appears at the top of the screen to guide them.

• Solving: Students type the answer using their keyboard or an on-screen letter pad.

• Help features: Users can tap on individual letters to reveal them if they get stuck (depending on your chosen settings).

• Completion: Once the grid is full, students can see their time, review their accuracy, and submit their results to the Leaderboard.

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Creating your Crossword activity

1. Click Create Activity and choose Crossword.

2. Add your content:

   • Keyword: Enter the word or phrase that will appear in the grid.

   • Clue: Enter the definition or question that describes the keyword.

   • Optional: You can add an image as part of the clue to provide a visual hint.

3. Click Add an item or press Enter to add the next word/clue pair.

   • Note: Try to include at least 5–10 words to ensure the grid has enough "criss-cross" intersections.

4. Click Done. Wordwall will automatically calculate the best layout for your grid.

   
    

5. Use the Options panel below the game to adjust the difficulty:

   • TIMER

     • None: Students can solve the crossword at their own leisure
     • Count up: Tracks how long it takes for the student to fill in the entire grid
     • Count down: Challenges students to complete the puzzle within a set time limit (e.g., 5 minutes)
   • MECHANICS
     • Strictly mark letter accents: Essential for foreign language teachers. If checked, the game will mark an answer as incorrect if the student misses an accent (e.g., writing "n" instead of "ñ"). If unchecked, the game is more lenient.
     • Show answer when wrong: If enabled, the correct word will be revealed to the student immediately after an incorrect guess is submitted. This is helpful for formative practice but may make a graded assessment too easy.
   • END OF GAME
     • Show answers: Allows students to view the completed grid at the end of the activity so they can see any words they missed or struggled with.
   • KEYBOARD LANGUAGE
     • Auto: Wordwall automatically detects the language based on your content and provides the appropriate on-screen keyboard (including special characters).
     • Manual selection: Use the drop-down menu to force a specific keyboard layout if you are teaching a specific language that requires special symbols or alphabets.
   • SAVING YOUR OPTIONS
     • Apply to this activity: Saves these specific choices only for the activity you are currently editing
     • Set as default for template: Saves these settings as your "go-to" configuration for every future activity you create using the Unjumble template
     • Revert to default: This clears any custom changes you’ve made to the Options panel and returns the settings to your own previously saved personal defaults.
     • Revert to author's setting: This is particularly useful when you have bookmarked or copied an activity created by another teacher from the Community page.

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Creating Crossword with AI

You don't need to be a prompt expert to use our AI. It is designed to be intuitive and accessible directly from the activity creator.

1. Click Create Activity and select Crossword.

   
    

2. Look for the ✨ Generate with AI button at the top right of the content table.

   
    

3. Enter your content:

   • Topic: Type a subject like "Respiratory System" or "Capital Cities of Europe."

   • Text / Notes: Paste a paragraph from a lesson. The AI will extract key terms for the grid and write definitions for the clues.

   • File: Upload a PDF or Word doc. Wordwall AI will analyse the text and automatically create a balanced list of keywords and clues.

4. Click Generate. Review the word/clue pairs, make any manual tweaks, and hit Done.

   

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Need inspiration?

Some examples of Crossword activities have been created by our users and shared with the Wordwall resource community.