For my Algebra 1 students I think I will try to start with the enrichment from now on. The problems that are usually considered as advanced are usually more interesting, and easily differentiated. For example, when teaching the order of operations to a group of students who have dealt with the order of operations for years, I decided to begin with the four digit problem.
This problem has the students use the digits 1, 2, 3, and 4 in operations to create the numbers 1-50.
Introducing the problem caused a bit more groaning than I was necessarily expecting, so I stressed that they just try a possible combination. When on student finally said 1*2*3*4 = 24, I quickly wrote it up on the board, and made sure to point out that one of the fifty was now done.
It was inevitable that some students tried very hard to use some digits more than once, or to leave others out, but in that case I would add the missing digit or replace the duplicate digit and ask what the result would be.
The students then broke into groups, and I had them find as many as they could. At the end of about twenty minutes of almost constant work, I had the students tell me how many they had completed, and whoever had completed the most (23) got a night off of homework, while the others had to complete that many for homework for the next day