This spring we found a couple small snakes in the front yard by the flower beds. The kids loved watching them and grabbing them by their tail.
They really tried hard to get the second snake, but he was wound through the thatch layer of the grass and I think he would have been pulled into pieces if I didn't stop them. I'm not a huge fan of snake's, but ones this size are ok.
As long as they aren't rattlesnakes, like the Michigan rattlesnakes we used to have at the house I grew up at in Michigan. Each spring we would find ~10 baby rattlesnakes, but never the adults. It was amazing to see the little bugger's (less than a foot long) try and shake their rattles and strike at anything that got close - like the shovel. The DNR at the time told us to either chop them in half or capture them in a jar and take them in to them for disposal, since they were in our yard...