Ping Pong Zoo
K- Put a bucket of rubber animals in the middle of the gym (the cage). The more animals the better. Put one side of the ping pong table up so it acts like a wall. Place a target on each ping pong table. Students will have their own ball and paddle and will try to hit the target on their table. If they can hit their target they get to grab an animal from the cage. Keep doing this until the animals are all taken. At this point students will travel to other tables to try to hit their target. If they are successful then they get to take an animal and bring it back to their zoo. Goal is to get as many animals as possible.
1st-3rd- Put a bucket of rubber animals in the middle of the gym (the cage). The more animals the better. Put one side of the ping pong table up so it acts like a wall. Students as asked to hit their ball against their teams wall 2 or 3 times in a row. If successful, they get to grab an animal from the cage and add it to their zoo. They keep doing this until all of the animals are out of the cage. At this point, students visit other zoo's and try to hit the wall 2 or 3 times in a row. If successful they get to take an animal back to their own zoo.
4th-5th- Put a bucket of rubber animals in the middle of the gym (the cage). The more animals the better. Table is down. Students are attempting to rally a ball over the net 5 times in a row. If successful they get to grab an animal from the cage. Once the cage is empty students will challenge other zoo's for their animals. Play games to 3 points with the zoo keeper starting with the serve. If the challenger gets 3 first then they take an animal back to their zoo. If the zookeeper wins they keep all their animals and the challenger has to go somewhere else.
Ping Pong Battleship
Can be played in doubles or singles. Will use individual hits (serve/forehand/backhand) for each attempt. Not rallying back and forth. Setup: place at least three ships (card stock paper of different sizes) in a large binder clip standing up. Students are attempting to knock down each of the other teams ships with their serve or hit. If a ship gets knocked down by their own hit will be put back up. First team to get all of the other teams ships out wins the round. Switch sides and setup again.
Ping Pong Box Battle
I played this game as a class team. I setup a large tub on one side of 5 ping pong tables. Each table also had one ping pong paddle. Students needed one ping pong ball and lined up behind one of the 5 tables. During their turn they attempted to hit the ball into the big tub. 4th and 5th graders were asked to serve the ball into the red tub (ball has to hit their side of the table before it goes over the net on a serve). We counted the number of balls that made it into the tub and they tried to set the grade level and school record. Super motivating. (This was hard for kindergarten but everyone else was able to get into double figures when given about 10 minutes to work).
Ping Pong Principal's Office
Doubles or Singles. One team starts as the principal. Anyone that would like to challenge the principal starts on the other side. Principal always starts with the serve. Challenges are in a line each with a paddle. As the principal serves it over, the challenger attempts to hit it back. After the challenger hits is back they move to the back of the line and the next challenger steps up. If the principal makes a mistake, the challenger who made the last hit gets to become the principal and a new line of challengers starts again. If a challenger makes a mistake they leave the line to join another game or wait for a new principal to be put into place.
Ping Pong Around the World
This would make for a good serving activity but could also be used to practice forehand/backhand hits. Setup poly dots around the table (in each corner and some in the middle. Goal is to serve/hit the ball over the net and have it land on one of the poly dots. If you hit the poly dot then that poly dot is taken off the table. Goal is to get all of the poly dots off of the table first.
Target Practice
Set up targets on the table using cups or other objects, and take turns hitting the ball at the targets. You can make it more challenging by placing the targets in different spots or making them smaller.
Two-on-One
One player stands on one side of the table, while two players stand on the other side. The two players try to hit the ball past the solo player, while the solo player tries to return the ball.
Bounce
Round One: Players try and bounce the ball one time across the table to their partner. The partner must catch it before a second bounce. If both players catch on one bounce they proceed to two bounces and so on. The object is to see how many bounces with catching you can achieve. You can do it sideways across the table (easier), full length of the table with or without the net (harder).
Round Two: Players have a paddle. They return to level one with one bounce on the table. This time they are hitting the ball and trying to make the catch.