I have been playing around on Polyvore — the fashion and style website — this summer and having a lot of fun with it, and I keep thinking that if I enjoy it, some of my upper elementary girls would probably enjoy using it too.  I’ve been noodling around for a couple of weeks to come up with ways to make it educational as well as entertaining, and that’s how Story Style was born!

My idea is that students can use the Polyvore database of clothing and images (or upload their own) to create outfits that fictional characters might wear, like the above example of clothes for Fern from Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White.  Here I have re-imagined her as a modern-day girl caring for a runty pig on a farm, wearing overalls and rubber boots.

Here’s another example using historical fiction:

One from the fairy tale genre):

Mirror Mirror on the Wall by lori-june

And one from realistic fiction:

Clementine from the CLEMENTINE Series
by Sara Pennypacker illus. by Marla Frazee

(Can’t you just picture Clementine doing a cartwheel?!)

And can you guess who this is?

 

Of course it’s Babymouse, from the series by Jennifer and Matthew Holm!

I can see students using this at a library learning center, and I can also envision teachers allowing students to create outfits for characters they meet in classroom novels (and justifying their clothing choices in a paragraph of persuasive writing) as an extension activity.  I could also hold  contests for students to create an outfit for a particular character; you’d have to Read the Book to Nail the Look!

I may also post some of these clothing sets on my kids book blog (Book Buzz) as interactives.  For example, students could look at the Junie B. Jones clothing set below and leave a comment voting for their favorite outfit.

 

I have created a StoryStyle Collection at Polyvore where I’ll be adding new sets periodically. Want to give it a try yourself?  I’d love to see — and share — your creations!  Just leave a comment here with the link to your Polyvore set(s), or tweet me @LibraryLoriJune.  I’ll be using the hashtag #StoryStyle on Twitter, so watch for it!

p.s. Polyvore is available online, or as a free iTunes or Android app.  🙂