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My son had a ball, shooting his plastic army men.

Now that you mention it, I seem to recall enjoying shooting at the little plastic army men as well.

There are cheap metal hanging targets for air guns and the kids get a kick out hearing that ping and making that little silhouette move . I noticed they had more fun shooting soda cans than targets and got the idea to get them the metal reactive one.

While reactive targets are great fun, steel targets and steel BBs usually don't mix well -- lots of ricochet. There are plenty of other options, though. You can find plated lead BBs, which deform against the steel targets and don't pose much of a ricochet risk. Also, Daisy make some little disk targets that break when you hit them. Then there are paintballs glued to a target, soda cans, balloons, pill bottles, ping pong balls, practice whiffle-ball-like golf balls, etc... that can be used as reactive targets.

Making a frame with a 3/8" plywood back that will hold a ceiling tile with a little space between it and the back can give you a pretty flexible backstop to use for whatever type of target you want to shoot with a BB gun, and you can recover most of the BBs to clean and re-use. You will have to replace the ceiling tile occasionally, but they are fairly cheap.

I am reminded of Proverbs 22:6. "Train up a child in the way he should go, And when he is old he will not depart from it." Ingraining responsible gun handling habits in our youngsters is a great way to ensure a lifetime of positive experiences in shooting sports.