Calengoo is Good

I wasn’t going to blog about Google Calendar and how it has helped organize our homeschool because I figured I was the last person on earth to clue into Google Calendar and its super powers. But four people have asked about it now, so I’m going to go ahead and yammer on about how I love having umpteen color-coded, virtual, shareable calendars on one page. Those of you who already knew about Google Calendar and neglected to tell me about it can go sit in the corner until I’ve finished.)

Here is my Google Calendar screen from a few months ago—you can click for a larger image.

this isn’t our schedule anymore, so don’t get any ideas ;)

When I said you can have umpteen calendars, I wasn’t kidding. You can have one for each person in your family, one for meals, one for work, one for school, one for chores, one for birthdays, one for bank holidays, one for nose picking, etc., etc.  You can share some or all or none with your spouse, your kids, your mom, your boss, your best friend, your goldfish, etc., etc.  (Be sure you don’t schedule “Dirty Sex” on the wrong calendar, as your Goobs will not appreciate it.)

These are our shared calendars:

• Squares (our main calendar - most everything we do outside the home goes here)
• Work (The Man’s work schedule - now everyone knows when Daddy’s coming home)
• JellyMan’s Assignments
• Anemone’s Assignments
• Meals (this has eliminated the dreaded “What’s for dinner?” question)

Each calendar can have its own settings. For instance, JellyMan can add “swing dancing at 8:30” to Thursday’s agenda, but he can’t delete “Math #67, 1-30.” (He could delete “orthodontist at 11:00” but so far he has resisted temptation!) Also, The Goobs don’t need to see each other’s school assignments. “MOM! He/She is doing 30 seconds less work than I am today!!!!” They’re still able to compare, of course, but I’m certainly not going to make it any easier for them.

Oh! You can also keep lists over on the right hand side! You can make a “Buy This Stuff On The Way Home Or Else” list for your husband, or a list of books you need from the library, or a list of Irritating Things. It’s a very useful feature.

Having all these calendars is great, but I didn’t want The Goobs to always be hopping onto my computer to look at their assignments. I bought them iPod Touches for a reason.

Enter Calengoo.

I think Calengoo is one of the prettiest and most functional of the calendar syncing apps. It has never crashed on me, and I very much appreciate it. (Did you hear that, MobileMe?) I set our apps to sync upon opening, so any changes I’ve made to their daily assignments will load right away. This is what JellyMan sees when he opens his calendar:

 hmmm, I’m not sure why there are two dinner slots at 7:00—weird

He can see at a glance where he needs to be that day, and whether or not The Man will be available to drive him. He sees that it’s a pretty busy day, but The Man is home so he won’t have to sit white-knuckled as Mom startles unsuspecting pedestrians in downtown Honolulu. JellyMan prefers to work from a list, so he touches the third calendar icon down there at the bottom of the screen: 

If he selects Latin, this is what he sees:

If he selects Fried Chicken, this is what he sees:

Google makes tormenting The Goobers so darn easy!