Abstract
This contribution introduces the results of a documentary focussing, ethnographic study on processes and practices of ‘researching’ activities of kindergarten and primary school children within the framework of an extracurricular natural science education offer. Pursuing two core issues of how educational and learning processes of children are conducted in a framework of natural science and how various pedagogical and didactical settings influence the ‘researching’ activities of the children, four permanent children’s groups were continually accompanied throughout the project. The core of this complex material corpus is made up of observation protocols and video recordings of pedagogically accompanied experimental units. One the one hand, this led to a differentiation of a typology of ‘researching’ activities of children and, on the other hand, of a typology of interactive referencing, the organisation of interaction between the children and the teachers. These two typologies penetrate, overlap and modify one another. Once the teachers are successful in picking up on the activity guiding orientation of the children and in interacting in an inclusive mode, a mode of framework congruence, intensive experience of materials and phenomena as well as intensive pedagogically framed interaction are prompted and supported.