Fun Musical Games with Ping Pongs

These fun musical games with ping pongs are a great idea for music classes at school or at home, they’re cheap and easy to set up and kids just love playing with those bouncy little ping pongs!

Fun Musical Games With Ping Pongs

Shoot The Bucket

For a group of 4 children, or larger group divided into 4 teams.

You will need:

4 dice.

Around 40 ping pongs marked up with music notes in sharpie pen.

A large bucket to store all the ping pongs together.

4 smaller buckets (a child’s beach bucket is perfect)

• Each team forms a queue,
• Place a dice in front of each team. The person at the front rolls the dice to get a number, and then goes to choose the ping pongs from the large bucket that will add up to the same number in note values.
• So for example, if you roll a 6, you could choose 3 half notes, or a whole note and 2 quarter notes.
• Then they stand ten paces in front of their own smaller bucket and try to aim the ping pongs into the bucket.
• If they go in, then add up the note values of the successful ping pongs to give you the score.
• If they miss, then collect the ping pongs and return them to the larger bucket for another go.
• The game ends when the large bucket is empty and all the ping pong balls have been used up.

Ping Pong Pops

Ping pongs marked with notes in a bucket at the front of the class.

A blindfold.

• One child sits at the front with their eyes closed or blindfolded.
• The other children take it turns to choose a ping pong from the bucket.
• They bounce and catch the ping pong the same number of times to match the note value – Half Note = 2 bounces Whole Note = 4 bounces
• Obviously with young children and ping pongs this might take a couple of goes, but this is half the fun!
• The blindfolded child has to identify the note.
• Then they swap, until everyone has had a go at both guessing and bouncing.

Which Ping Pong Am I?

2 inch thin card headbands, made to fit an average child’s head enough for one each.

Double-sided sticky tape, stick a 1 inch strip on the front of each headband.

A ping pong marked with a note for each child.

• Everyone should be wearing their headbands.
• The teacher chooses a ping pong at random for each child and attaches it to the front of their headband, making sure that they don’t see which note is written on it.
• The children mingle asking each other questions like – “Do I have a stem?”  “Is my note head filled in?”  “Am I a rest?”  “Am I worth two beats?”
• Ask the children not to give away the answers and to wait until the end to reveal which note they are.
• After a few minutes, stop the game and ask each child in turn if they can guess which note they are. Ask the name and how many beats they are worth.
• If time allows, you can collect up the ping pongs and play it again.

If you’re looking for more fun musical games with musical manipulatives check out 5 Easy Musical Manipulatives for some more great ideas!