The story
My name is Thomas Sobstyl. I’m the parent of a child in CE2, the French equivalent of Year 4, and an independent developer. Kamelo started at home, as a little spelling game for the colour-group word lists my child’s class brings home.
The apps I found mostly offered general courses, very well made but unrelated to that evening’s list, or apps that give the answer. I wanted something else: to start from the homework diary, practise exactly what the teacher set, in about ten minutes, with a character children look forward to seeing, and without the app doing the work for them.
Kamelo for families in the UK
The version for the UK follows the national curriculum in England: Year 1 to Year 6, weekly spellings, the common exception words and statutory word lists, times tables up to 12 × 12, number bonds, and a practice mode for the Year 4 multiplication tables check. It is planned for the UK in January 2027, after France.
Kamelo’s principles
- The teacher’s list, tonight. We start from the homework your child actually has. Anything else comes second.
- Practice, never ready-made answers. Nothing in Kamelo solves homework.
- Ten calm minutes. No red, no timer by default, no lives, no leaderboards, nothing to lose. A mistake comes back later, as an ‘almost’.
- Grown-ups hold the AI, the money and the data. The parent photographs, checks, pays and gives consent. The child gets checked exercises, a character whose lines are all written in advance, and nothing to buy.
- Alive, finished and honest. Every screen is polished, an exercise ships later rather than rough, and this site promises nothing the app doesn’t do.
How Kamelo is made
Kamelo is a native app for iPhone, iPad and Android, in French, British English and American English. Data is hosted in Paris. Photos are read by Claude, Anthropic’s AI, with your consent. The chameleon is a digital puppet, animated in real time by the same engine in both apps and on this site.
Write to us
A question, a problem, an idea for an exercise? Write to thomas.sobstyl@me.com. I read every message and reply myself, in English or in French.