Crossword puzzles were invented by accident in 1913 by the editor of the New York World when he was looking for something to fill up empty column space and from day one crossword puzzles were a colossal success.
If you are interested in learning more about the history of crossword puzzles and lear about stories of its die hard fans, check out this amazing book by Adrienne Raphel entitled Thinking Inside the Box: Adventures with Crosswords and the Puzzling People Who Can't Live Without Them.
Crossword puzzles are key in learning. They can help develop students vocabulary skills, improve concentration, and enhance language learning. Crossword puzzles also boost cognitive abilities and spatial thinking skills.
Scientific studies proved that for older people doing crossword puzzles late in life can delay the onset of cognitive decline, prevent dementia and enhance their mental acuity.
The purpose of this post is to share with you some of the best crossword puzzle makers that you can use to easily create and share a wide variety of crossword puzzles. All of these crossword puzzle generators are easy to use, no technical skill is required.
Simply type in or paste your words and answers and click on generate to create your crossword puzzles. You can share your puzzles online, embed them on any website or blog, or print them out and use them offline.
As I was preparing this post I came across this interesting article from the New York Times in which Ben Tausig and Finn Vigeland explain the process of how to make a crossword puzzle.
Besides the numerous tips and guidelines , the authors mentioned these two helpful free tools that you can use to generate words and phrases for your crossword puzzles: OneLook.com and WordInfo.com/Finder. Check them out to learn more.
Crossword puzzles as a teaching tool
Crossword puzzles are great tools to scaffold your teaching, enhance students engagement and drive participation. You can use them for a wide variety of educational purposes but most importantly in teaching vocabulary. Crossword puzzles are proved to help students learn new vocabulary items, enhance their spelling skills, and boost their memory and retention rates.
To learn more about the educational importance of crossword puzzles, check out this research paper entitled Reviewing for exams: Do crossword puzzles help in the success of student learning? published in The Journal of Effective Teaching.
[ Related: Best puzzle apps for kids]
Crossword puzzle makers
Below is a collection of some of the best online crossword puzzle makers. Check them out and share with us on our social media profiles if you have other suggestions to add to the list.1. Crossword Generator, Classtools
Classtools has this awesome crossword puzzle maker that allows you to easily create interactive crossword quizzes that can be shared online, embedded in a website or blog, or exported as PDF worksheet.
The tool is free to use and works online. No registration required. Start by entering a title for your crossword puzzle, type in or paste your questions and answers or upload a CSV spreadsheet, and when done click on 'submit'.
2. Crossword Puzzle Creator, ABCya
This crossword puzzle maker from ABCya is especially designed for kids and young learners. It enables them to create beautiful interactive crossword puzzles. Kids can input their questions and answers or copy and paste them from a document.
The tool requires at least 10 words per puzzle and a maximum of 20 words. Generated puzzles can be played online or printed and used offline.
3. Crossword Puzzle Maker, Education.com
Education.com offers this simple yet powerful crossword puzzle generator that allows you to create various forms of crossword puzzle worksheets to download and share with others. Simply type or paste your list of words with their answer keys in the input column, enter a title for your crossword puzzle, then click on Create.
You can can then save and download your crossword puzzle worksheet to share with others. As a free user, you have access to limited features. To unlock full features you need to upgrade to tiehr the monthly or annual premium plans.
4. Crossword Puzzle Maker, MyCrosswordmaker
MyCrosswordmaker offers this crossword puzzle maker to help you create printable crossword puzzles. The tool offers fully customizable crossword puzzle grid and a sophisticated auto-arrange algorithm.
Besides printing your crossword puzzles, you can also publish them online and choose to accept online submissions which is a great feature to use with your students.
MyCrosswordmaker is not free. 'A subscription to make unlimited crosswords costs $5/month, or $4.25/month when billed annually. You can try it free for 30 days before deciding if you want to subscribe.'
5- Crossword Labs
Crossword Labs is another good crossword maker to use use with students. It allows you to easily build, print, share and solve crossword puzzles online. The process is very simple: type in your crossword title, enter words, add space and clues and there you go. You have the option to protect the answer key using a passcode you create.
6- Puzzlemaker
Puzzlemaker is a crossword maker tool ideal for teachers, students and parents. Create and print customized word search, criss-cross, math puzzles, and more using your own word lists. To start using Puzzle maker, choose puzzle type from the provided and follow the instructions.
7- Instant Online Crossword Puzzle Maker
Instant Online Crossword Puzzle Maker comes with awesome features some of which are premium such as saving a puzzle as PDF file. The way it works is simple:’Start each line with an answer word, then type a slash "/" character, then the clue. Press the Enter key after each clue. Your clues can be as long as you want.’
8. Crossword Solver
Crossword Solver allows you to easily solve any cryptic puzzle, American style crossword game or British crossword in no time. The tool searches over 300,000 questions and more than 2,000,000 solutions to help you solve your game. You simply enter your crossword clue to search the crossword dictionary and instantly find the right word.
If you already know some letters of the crossword puzzle solution, you can easily search for the remaining letters. Just enter the letters in the box below the crossword clue then click “Solve the Clue.”. Beyond finding the best crossword answer, the word solver will also find similar words with the same number of letters.
