Build a complete timeline of California history from the first peoples through today, correctly sequencing the year's major events.
This week you build one long timeline covering the entire year: the first Californians and their many nations, Cabrillo's 1542 voyage, the 1769 mission chain, Mexican independence in 1821 and the rancho era, the 1848 gold discovery and 1850 statehood, the 1869 transcontinental railroad, and the water systems, industries, government, and immigration waves that built the California of today.
A good historian does not just memorize dates, they explain WHY one event led to the next. Your timeline should not just list years, it should show at least a few of the connections you have learned all year -- how geography shaped Native lifeways, how Spanish worry over rival powers led to the missions, how the gold discovery and the war with Mexico nearly overlapped, and how the railroad opened the door for the farms, water systems, and industries that followed.
Mastery looks like: They can build an accurate, sequenced timeline of the year's major events and explain at least two real cause-and-effect connections between them.
Common stumbles: Listing dates without explaining any connections between them; leaving out an entire unit from the timeline.