If you’re a teacher, homeschool parent, tutor, or Teachers Pay Teachers seller who’s ever wanted to create custom crossword puzzles without spending hours building them from scratch, you’re in the right place!

Two of my favorite tools for creating educational resources are ChatGPT and Canva. Whether I’m designing activities for my classroom or creating resources for my Teachers Pay Teachers store, using these tools together helps me save time while still producing high-quality, engaging materials.

I’ve used this process to create vocabulary crosswords, phonics activities, science review puzzles, social studies vocabulary practice, holiday-themed games, and even seasonal enrichment activities. Once you learn the workflow, you can adapt it to almost any subject or grade level.

If you want to learn about other ways I use ChatGPT and Canva, please comment below

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In This Tutorial…

In this tutorial, I’ll walk you through how I use ChatGPT to generate vocabulary words and clues, then use Canva’s Activities Maker app to turn them into a ready-to-use crossword puzzle in just a few minutes.

What I love most about Activities Maker is that it goes far beyond crosswords. You can also create word searches, mazes, and even Bingo boards (with a Canva Pro subscription), making it a fantastic tool for teachers, homeschoolers, and resource creators alike.

A Quick Note About Canva Licencing

I have a Canva for Education account, which gives me access to many Pro features at no cost. However, if you plan to sell any resources you create, be sure to review Canva’s licensing terms carefully. The Education license does not grant commercial usage rights in the same way a paid Canva Pro subscription does.

If you’re creating products to sell, you’ll either need to purchase the appropriate licenses or use elements that are designated as free for commercial use.

If you’d like to see a tutorial on how I search for free Canva elements and clip art for commercial projects, let me know in the comments!

Creating a Document On Canva

For this example, we’ll be creating a simple 10-clue vocabulary crossword puzzle, but once you learn the process, you’ll be able to adapt it to virtually any topic or skill. Let’s jump in.

First, we need to create a document on Canva. So navigate to the website: www.canva.com

Click on the “plus” button to create a new document

A window will appear with several document size options.

To create a custom-sized document, scroll down through the available presets and select Custom Size. This will allow you to enter the exact dimensions you’d like to use for your puzzle.

Next, enter your desired page dimensions. For this tutorial, I’m using an 8″ × 10″ document, but you can also use the standard letter size of 8.5″ × 11″.

Personally, I prefer 8″ × 10″ because it tends to print a little more cleanly and helps prevent any part of the puzzle from being cut off by printer margins. That said, either size will work, so feel free to choose the format that best fits your needs.

When you’re finished entering your dimensions, click on “create new design”

Upload a Background Image

Next, let’s add a background.

For this tutorial, I created my background in PowerPoint using basic shapes and design elements, then saved the slide as a JPEG image.

If you’d rather create your design directly in Canva, that’s an option too. Simply click on Graphics or Images and search for a background that matches the look and feel you’re going for.

Canva offers thousands of options, making it easy to find something that complements your puzzle theme.

Click on the Upload files button

Locate your file in your documents. Then click “open”

Now For the Fun Part!

Now it’s time to open the tool that will create our crossword puzzle. In the same sidebar where you uploaded your images, locate and click on Apps.

Once the Apps panel opens, click inside the Search Canva Apps box and type Activities Maker

Select this first app that appears

When the app pops up, click on Open.

At the top of the Activities Maker menu, select crossword

Generate Content With ChatGPT

Next, open ChatGPT in a new tab. We’re going to use it to generate the words and clues for our crossword puzzle.

Type the following prompt:

“Using this format: FIRSTWORD; First Clue SECONDWORD; Second Clue, generate a list of 10 adjective words and their definitions. They should be grade-level appropriate words.”

Feel free to customize the prompt to fit your needs. You can change the part of speech, vocabulary skill, number of words, or grade level depending on the type of puzzle you’d like to create.

Once you’ve adjusted the prompt, press Enter on your keyboard and ChatGPT will generate your word and clue list in the format needed for Activities Maker.

Once ChatGPT has generated your word and clue list, copy the entire response by clicking the Copy button, which appears as an icon with two overlapping squares. This will automatically copy the formatted list to your clipboard, making it easy to paste directly into Canva in the next step.

Generating Your Crossword

Return to Canva and reopen Activities Maker if it is no longer visible. If needed, simply repeat the previous steps to locate the app under Apps.

Once Activities Maker is open, paste the list you copied from ChatGPT into the Words and Clues List field.

Next, scroll down to the customization options. By default, Activities Maker may be set to include 12 words. To change this, either type your desired number directly into the box or use the slider to increase or decrease the total number of words included in the puzzle.

Since our list contains 10 words, we’ll set the puzzle to include all 10.

Click “Generate” at the bottom of the page

If Activities Maker doesn’t generate your puzzle correctly, double-check that ChatGPT followed the exact format requested in the prompt. Even an extra punctuation mark or line break can sometimes cause import issues.

Finishing Touches

Once the puzzle is generated, Activities Maker will create four separate elements:

• A blank crossword puzzle

• A completed crossword puzzle (answer key)

• A list of Across clues

• A list of Down clues

These elements will be placed on your canvas automatically, but you’ll need to arrange and resize them to fit your page layout. Don’t worry if everything looks a little messy at first—that’s completely normal.

In the next step, I’ve included a video demonstration showing exactly how I positioned and formatted the puzzle components to create the final worksheet.

Watch the video below to see how I arranged the crossword

Ready to Download!

Click on “Share” at the top of the page

Once you’re happy with the layout of your crossword puzzle, click Download in the upper-right corner of Canva. This will open the download settings menu, where you can choose your preferred file format and adjust any additional export options before saving your worksheet.

Choosing a File Type

Use the dropdown menu to select your file type. For this crossword puzzle, I’m choosing PDF Print since it provides the best quality for printing worksheets.

You’ll also see several additional options:

Crop Marks and Bleed – This adds trim marks around the page for professional printing and cutting. Since this is a classroom worksheet and won’t need to be trimmed, I’m leaving this option unchecked.

Flatten PDF – This combines all of the elements into a single image within the PDF. This can be helpful if you want to prevent accidental editing, but it’s optional.

Include Notes – If you’ve added notes to your Canva document and would like them included in the PDF, select this option. I haven’t added any notes, so I’ll leave it unchecked.

Match Reading Order to Layers – This option is useful if you’ve carefully arranged layers for accessibility or screen readers. For this worksheet, I don’t need to use this setting.

You can also choose which pages to download and adjust the color profile if needed.

Once your settings are selected, click Download and Canva will generate your finished crossword puzzle PDF.

Opening Our Crossword Puzzle

If you’re using Google Chrome, you can quickly open your downloaded file by clicking the Downloads icon in the upper-right corner of the browser (circled in red in the image below). A list of your recent downloads will appear. Simply click on the PDF file you just downloaded to open and review your completed crossword puzzle.

And that’s it! In just a few minutes, you’ve created a custom crossword puzzle using the combined power of ChatGPT and Canva. This simple workflow can save you a tremendous amount of time while still allowing you to create engaging, curriculum-aligned activities tailored to your students’ needs. Whether you’re making vocabulary practice, review activities, or themed puzzles for special occasions, the possibilities are virtually endless.

I’d love to see what you create! If you use this tutorial to make your own crossword puzzle, let me know in the comments what topic you chose. And if you’d like to see tutorials for creating word searches, mazes, Bingo boards, or other classroom resources using ChatGPT and Canva, be sure to leave a comment below.