Type a topic, or paste your own word list, and Word Mat finds a picture for every word and lays them out as a printable A4 sheet. You choose the sheet: a desk mat with the topic in the middle and the words round it, cut-out picture cards, or lanyard cards a child can wear. Add up to two translation languages if you have pupils learning English. Then print. Done properly, it is under a minute from typing the topic to the sheet coming out of the printer.
Three ways in. Generate Your Own takes a topic and the age of your class and suggests the words. Ready Made gives you fourteen mats that are already built: How I feel, In the classroom, In the playground, Lunchtime, The weather, My family, My body, Clothes, Colours, Numbers to ten, Getting to school, Farm animals, Pets and The seasons. Write Your Own is a blank list for the words you already have. Whichever you pick, the list is yours to edit before anything prints.
The words print in a clear handwriting-style face, as you typed them rather than in capitals, with the translations stepped underneath. Every picture has rounded corners. It looks like the symbol cards schools pay for, on purpose.
Our space topic was the one that made me build the lanyard cards. The vocabulary was genuinely hard for some of my learners to pick up, and being able to put those exact words, with pictures, on a card round a child's neck was the thing that helped. For maths I print the desk mats: some go in books, some get laminated and stuck to the tables, and the cut-out cards from the same list go up on the display so the rest of the class gets the words too.
This used to be a twenty or thirty minute job, and it used to need a subscription to a website that did one thing. Now I type the topic, it comes back with words it thinks belong, some do and some don't, and on the preview I delete the wrong ones, add the ones it missed and keep the ones I would not have thought of. Then it goes and finds the pictures itself. I do not upload anything unless I want to.
The thing I worried about was the pictures. It vets them so the picture matches the word, and when it does get one wrong you delete it and swap it, or upload your own. The colleagues I have recommended it to now use it more than I do. I know because I walk into their classrooms and it is on the walls and in the children's books.
Yes, and that is the difference from a ready-made mat you download. A downloaded mat is somebody else's topic and somebody else's twenty words. Here every word is yours to keep, cut or replace, the picture behind each word can be changed, the count and the sheet type are a click, and even the fourteen ready-made mats land in the same editable list as a generated one. If your class calls it a "lunch hall" rather than a "canteen", the mat says lunch hall.
First it looks in the open-licensed symbol sets: Mulberry, OpenMoji, PiCom, Tawasol and Stellar, through Global Symbols. That covers most classroom words with a clear cartoon on a white background. When a word has no symbol, it tries Wikipedia's own picture for the thing, then a Wikimedia Commons search that only accepts photos under licences that allow classroom printing, and the photographer is credited in a grey line at the foot of the sheet. A chess topic finds the bishop, not the clergyman, because it searches the word inside its topic.
When it still gets one wrong, tap the picture, change the wording it searched for, or upload your own. Your picture is remembered for that word next time. A word it cannot find at all shows a question mark rather than a wrong picture.
Each card can carry the English word plus up to two other languages, chosen from fifteen including Spanish, French, Polish, Romanian, Arabic, Mandarin, Portuguese, Turkish, German and Italian. Type "space" and Jupiter comes back as Jupiter, Júpiter and Jowisz on the same card. On a desk mat, sixteen words is the comfortable ceiling with two languages on; past that the pictures get small. Lanyard cards carry the first language only, so the words stay readable at card size.
Three groups. A new arrival with little English, who needs toilet, water, help and dinner on a card today, with their own language next to each. A child with SEN who works from visual supports and needs the topic words as pictures, not a list. And the whole class, for any topic with vocabulary that will not stick: the mat on the table means the word is there when they reach for it, instead of a hand going up.
The cards are Widgit-inspired: clear pictures on clean white with a bold word underneath, the style that works for visual supports. Sage Teachers is independent and not affiliated with Widgit Software.
Free to try. Choosing and editing your words costs nothing. Making the sheet uses one token, and every reprint of that sheet is free. Bookmark it and it reopens with the words, pictures, languages and sheet type saved, with no token. Every account gets 20 free tokens and Pro gives 50 a day, across every app on the site rather than one. For comparison, the symbol software schools usually pay for lists £140 a year for up to four users.
How do I make a word mat?
Type a topic and the age of your class, pick a ready-made mat, or paste your own words. Edit the list, choose desk mat, cut-out cards or lanyard cards, and print the A4 PDF.
Is the word mat editable?
Yes. Every word can be kept, cut or replaced, every picture can be swapped or uploaded, and the ready-made mats open in the same editable list as a generated one.
Can I add translations for EAL pupils?
Yes. Each card shows the English word plus up to two languages from fifteen, including Spanish, French, Polish, Romanian, Arabic and Mandarin.
Can I make flashcards or symbol cards with it?
Yes. Cut-out cards print at 4, 6, 9 or 12 a page: four for big teaching cards and a display, twelve for flashcards. Lanyard cards print six a sheet with a punch hole.
Is the word mat maker free?
Free to try. Making a sheet uses one token, reprinting it is free, and a bookmark reopens it with no token. Every account gets 20 free tokens and Pro gives 50 a day.
Turn the same list into a puzzle with the Word Search Maker, build a picture prompt around the topic with Picture This, or print the topic title for the working wall with Display Lettering.
Written by a practising primary school teacher · checked September 2026